The present work aimed to evaluate the effect of different periods of irrigation during and different fertilizer applications on productivity of coffee plant in 4 consecutive harvests. An experiment was accomplished in strips, in which the split fertilizer applications were tested: plot 1 received 12 applications of fertilizers in a manual way, plots 2, 3 and 4 received, respectively, 12, 24 and 36 applications of fertilizers through irrigation water. In the strips 3 irrigation periods were tested, 1/6 to 30/9, 15/7 to 30/9, 1/9 to 30/9 and a control treatment without irrigation, with 3 repetitions (blocks). The results of total coffee productivity expressed in kg ha-1, were submitted to the variance analysis and to mean comparison test, when it was necessary. The variance analysis detected significant effect for irrigation times and in harvests. The only significant interaction was between harvest and irrigation times, showing that the irrigation does not eliminate the biennial cycle of coffee plant productivity. The irrigation from 1/6 to 30/9, and from 15/7 to 30/9 provided better mean productivity of 3,852.2 and 3,527.1 kg ha-1, respectively.
irrigation management; fertigation; biennial cycle
