Mission

Lavi Model Irrigation Farm (LMIF) is managed by the Israeli Almond Growers Association (IAGA), funded for 2023-2027 by BARD (IS-5619-23), and coordinated by Tamir Kamai and Or Sperling (ARO).

LMIF mission is to improve almond production in Israel by precise irrigation applications.

Experimental Design

The study surveys nine irrigation approaches. The farm spans 10 ha, includes 3,000 trees (UEF, 53, and 54 cultivars):

irg2023 valve mark trt
ARO 24 red I
HYD 25 grey D
CA3 26 pink F
CA2 27 white E
WNT 28 black G
DEF 29 orange A
ISX 30 green B
DND 31 lime C
FRS 32 brown H

variable Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep total
I DEF 0.2 1.8 3.8 4.1 3.9 2.7 1.8 549
I ARO 0.6 3.1 4.5 5.6 6.8 6.3 3.2 903
I HYD 1.0 3.5 5.1 6.3 8.8 7.4 6.0 1143
I DND 0.8 2.9 4.9 6.1 7.1 4.8 3.4 900

Research Findings

Our team measures trees’ discrete physiological performances every 14 days in April through October:

Yield

NPK (NPK; mg 0.1 g-1)

Stem Water Potential (SWP; MPa)

##          date cult   ARO   CA2   CA3    DEF   DND   HYD   WNT
## 1: 2023-09-26   53    NA    NA    NA -21.35 -15.7 -13.7    NA
## 2: 2023-09-26  UEF -17.7 -21.7 -16.3 -23.80 -18.5 -14.4 -21.4

Stomatal Conductance (gs; umol m-2 s-1)

##          date cult ARO   CA2   CA3   DEF   DND   HYD  WNT
## 1: 2023-09-26   53  NA    NA    NA 285.5 419.5 360.5   NA
## 2: 2023-09-26  UEF 316 138.5 318.5 212.0 191.5 305.5 78.5

Leaf Area Index (LAI; m2 m-2)

date irg2023 sample value
2023-09-10 ARO lvi 18 9 2.00
2023-09-10 ARO lvi 18 10 2.38
2023-09-10 DND lvi 18 14 3.02
2023-09-10 DND lvi 18 15 3.03
2023-09-10 DND lvi 19 14 2.87
2023-09-10 DND lvi 19 15 3.00
2023-09-10 ARO lvi 18 19 3.21
2023-09-10 ARO lvi 18 20 3.10
2023-09-10 DND lvi 18 25 3.09
2023-09-10 DND lvi 18 26 3.00
2023-09-10 DND lvi 19 24 2.58
2023-09-10 DND lvi 19 25 2.32
2023-09-10 WNT lvi 15 9 2.40
2023-09-10 WNT lvi 15 10 2.81
2023-09-10 CA2 lvi 15 14 2.30
2023-09-10 CA2 lvi 15 15 2.22
2023-09-10 CA3 lvi 15 25 2.18
2023-09-10 CA3 lvi 15 26 2.30
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 9 19 2.60
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 9 20 3.18
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 12 15 2.83
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 12 16 3.34
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 13 14 3.32
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 13 15 3.25
2023-09-10 CA2 lvi 12 19 2.61
2023-09-10 CA2 lvi 12 20 2.66
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 12 25 2.06
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 12 26 1.86
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 13 25 1.80
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 13 26 2.39
2023-09-10 WNT lvi 12 30 2.67
2023-09-10 WNT lvi 12 31 2.46
2023-09-10 CA3 lvi 12 33 3.33
2023-09-10 CA3 lvi 12 34 2.31
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 6 30 1.67
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 6 31 2.47
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 7 29 1.36
2023-09-10 DEF lvi 7 30 2.21
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 7 35 3.05
2023-09-10 HYD lvi 7 36 2.60 
##          date cult  ARO   CA2   CA3   DEF   DND   HYD   WNT
## 1: 2023-09-10   53   NA    NA    NA 2.005 2.725 3.150    NA
## 2: 2023-09-10  UEF 2.74 2.455 2.305 1.960 3.025 3.005 2.565

Dendrometry

##    irg2023  N
## 1:     DEF 12
## 2:     HYD 15
## 3:     CA3  5
## 4:     DND 11
## 5:     ARO  5
## 6:     WNT  6
## 7:     CA2  4

##    cult letter    sample
## 1:  UEF      F lvi 15 23
## 2:  UEF      E lvi 12 19
## 3:  UEF      I lvi 18 19
## 4:  UEF      C lvi 18 14
## 5:  UEF      E lvi 15 13
## 6:   53      C lvi 19 13