Water requirement and scheduling of irrigation for litchi in foot hills of Himalayas

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of different soil moisture regimes on plant growth characters and water requirement of litchi cv. Dehradun. The growth parameters increased significantly under the irrigation at 20 and 40 per cent ASM depletion level over un-irrigated control. The former two were at par with each other. Irrigation application at 40 per cent ASM depletion saved about 0.2 per cent irrigation water without significant reduction in growth parameters over 20 per cent ASM depletion level. Thus, in a silt loam soil irrigation should be applied at 40 per cent ASM depletion level for getting optimum plant growth.