Determination of critical leaf water potential for irrigating Arabica coffee

摘要

Measurement made on the plant itself is reliable indicator of the water status of plant (Kramer, 1983). To study the effects of water stress on physiological process, estimation of soil water content is inadequate. Leaf water potential (LWP) integrates soil and aerial factors and it well correlated with soil moisture and therefore it is a good measure of water deficits (Akunda and Kumar, 1981). With an objective to find out the critical LWP for irrigating Arabica coffee an experiment was conducted at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore.