Initial growth of eucalyptus under different atmospheric demands and water replacement intervals

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the growth of four commercial clones of Eucalyptus urophyllax Eucalyptus grand is hybrid under moderate water deficit in greenhouses with high and low atmospheric demand. Evapotranspiration water replacement was made in timeslots of 2, 4 and 6 days and leaf area and dry weight of plants were assessed at the end of the experiment. The design was completely randomized, in factorial scheme 4x2x3 with four clones, two environments and three water replenishment intervals. It was concluded that water stress affected the plants’ growth and the selected clones showed different growth patterns. In the initial phase, clone 75 was the genetic material that showed slower growth. Clone 84 was highly productive under high atmospheric demand condition, however, showed significant reduction in growth when associated with water deficiency. Clone 66 was the most productive genetic material under low atmospheric demand condition with substrate moisture at field capacity. Thus the results demonstrate the possibility of using this study strategy to characterize clones tolerant and susceptible to water stress.