The present research was carried out in 2007 and 2008 years on 6 years old of "Le Conte" pear trees grafted on communis rootstock and grown in calcareous soil at Burg El-Arab region, Alexandria Governorate. The objective of this work was to investigate the effect of three irrigation rates based on soil matric potential measurements, which was as: (T1): high irrigation rate (-300 to -500 mbars), (T2): medium irrigation rate (-500 to -820 mbars) and (T3): low irrigation rate (-820 to -1762 mbars), on: vegetative growth, leaf chemical content, yield, fruit quality and water use efficiency (WUE).
The main results of this work can be summarized in the following points:
- Trees grown under (T1) ( from 100 to 80% of A.W), were significantly produced high shoot length, shoot diameter, leaf area fruit yield, high fruit quality ( F. length, diameter & weight) and gave higher water use efficiency (WUE). Also, these trees gave the highest leaf mineral composition (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn & Zn) and leaf total chlorophyll followed by (T2) ( from 80 to 60% of A. W) & (T3) ( from 60 to 40% of A.W) for the two seasons.
- On the other hand, trees grown under (T3) produced significantly high leaf free proline with fruits of highest firmness, acidity%, TSS% and total sugars% followed by those grown under (T2) and (T1) respectively, in the two studied seasons.
- Based on the above general results, the irrigation treatment (T1) is recommended for the irrigation of "Le Conte" pear trees planted in calcareous soil at Burg El- Arabe region (Egypt) using the trickle irrigation system scheduled via the soil matric potential measurement using tensiometers.