Inerbimento negli agrumeti: nota 2.: effetti sullo sviluppo del sistema radicale

The following four different treatments were compared during ten years in a Valencia Late orange orchard: A) grassing-down in the rows; B) grassing-down between the rows; C) total grassing-down; D) tillage. In treatments A-B-C festuca (cv Manade) was used as herbaceous species. In all farm trials the rootstock was sour orange. Several charactcristics of canopy growth and root-systems distribution in the soil were observed. Results have shown some differences between the four treatments tested. The best growth habitus and root-system distribution, with a rich number of principal and fibrous roots, were found in treatments B and D in which root-systems were however injured by tillage.