Developing a Water-stress Index for Potted Poinsettia Production

Abstract

Potted poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) is an important commercial commodity for the U.S. floriculture industry. The production of poinsettia demands intensively managed light control, heat, fertilizer, and water; inhibiting elongation with plant growth regulators, and protecting plants from diseases and pests with pesticide applications. Excessive irrigation creates pollution, promotes disease, and is expensive. Sensor-based control systems can optimize irrigation schedules. Irrigation management is crucial in nursery production of poinsettias because water is a limited resource and agricultural runoff is monitored in many states across the United States. By pairing environmental sensors with sensors that continuously monitor plant transpiration, we can determine how plant water use and water stress fluctuate with environmental and physiological demands. We hypothesized that continual measurements of sap flow could be correlated with environmental sensors to develop a new water stress index (WSI), which can deliver the benefits of detecting water stress that might affect the quality of potted poinsettias. To test this hypothesis, rooted cuttings of poinsettia (E. pulcherrima cv. Prestige Red) were individually potted into twelve 11-L black plastic nursery pots. Potted plants were grown in a naturally illuminated temperature-controlled glasshouse. The 12 plants were randomly assigned one of three watering treatments: weekly, biweekly, and triweekly irrigation. From the data collected, we were able to create a WSI that correlated available soil moisture with the difference between the expected transpiration with actual transpiration rates. Our results suggest that the plants in the weekly treatment group did not experience water stress until 0.3 m3·m–3 volume water content indicated by <0.2 WSI. These results support previous research that found 0.1 to 0.3 m3·m–3 can be stressful soil moisture conditions for greenhouse-grown crops. Results also show that for substrates with similar substrates that irrigation set points can be reduced to 0.2 m3·m–3 for improved irrigation efficiency.