Irrigation management and the use of plants adapted to water stress conditions have been very important to the success of plant production. It is now recognized that fine-tuning irrigation can improve crop water-use efficiency, creating positive impact on quality of products, and on cost of production. The water stress in fruit crops is generally caused by the deficit of water in the soil, in the atmosphere or in both. The environmental variables control the plant water loss. However, high values of leaf to air vapor pressure deficit (VPDleaf-to-air) can cause the stomatal closure and can reduce the transpiration process, mainly in large trees. In this experiment, it was used the heat dissipation method developed by GRANIER (1985) to sap flow measurements. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between xylem sap flow and reference evapotranspiration (ET0) in papaya plants cultivated with and without microspray irrigation over canopy and under field conditions. It was also investigated the relationship between xylem sap flow, photosynthetic photons flux density (PPFD) and air vapor pressure deficit (VPDair) values. There was a delay between the loss of water through the leaves and the movement of water through the trunk (lag phase). From January to March, there was a better relation between xylem sap flow and VPDair, which was not observed from June to August, probably because of this lag phase. From January to March, plants cultivated with microaspersion showed an increase in xylem sap flow, in relation to plants cultivated without microaspersion when, at this stage, the ET0 was higher.
Carica papaya L.; sap flow; environmental variables
