Responses of Old Grapevines to Switch Irrigation System from Surface to Drip or Babbler

In this study, in order to evaluate water use efficiency, the effects of three different irrigation methods including surface, Babler and drip irrigation were studied on response of old grapevine cultivar ‘Keshmeshi Sefid’. The experiment was conducted during three years from 2009 to 2011 based on randomized complete block design with three treatments and four replications in Miandoab, west Azarbaijan, Iran. Results indicated that irrigation methods has significant effects (P≤5%) on growth characteristics of grapevine; height, trunk circumference, length of cane and leaf area suggesting that swiching of irrigation methods to under pressure methods reduced the vegetative plant growth. Also, irrigation methods showed significant effects (P≤5%) on yield per vine, the number of bunch on the vine, bunch weight, bunch width and bunch length, water use efficiency, weight of 100-berry, pH and TSS of fruit indicating that changing irrigation methods resulted increase in water use efficiency, TSS and pH but reduced growth rate.The highest water use efficiency by 2.21 kilograms per cubic meter of water was obtained from drip followed by Babler (2.16), while this value was 1.48 for the surface irrigation. With half of water used in surface irrigation, the reduced yield of grape was 2.5 and 3.8 t ha-1, respectively. Therefore, with respect to relatively low yield reduction and even improvement of fruit quality, Bubbler system is recommended to change irrigation method in old grapevine orchards.