Responses to Different Irrigation Strategies of a Traditional and an Intensive Olive Orchard Cultivar 'Picual' in Andalusia, Spain

Water availability for irrigation is insufficient to meet the requirements of most Spanish olive-growing areas. An eight year study was conducted to quantify the response of two different olive orchards located in Jaen, Spain, to different deficit irrigation programmes. The results indicate that the response to irrigation depend on the total amount of water supplied to the orchard, but much less on the deficit strategy imposed under the deep soils of high water retention capacity used in the experiments.