INFLUENCE OF SPACING ON WATER INTERCEPTION BY CUP AND WATER STORAGE IN THE GROUND IN EUCALYPTUS CLONES
Soil moisture; water interception; Effective precipitation.
The water balance in forest crops is influenced by the canopy of the trees, which varies according to the type of species/clone and population density, among other factors. In this sense, this work aimed to evaluate the influence of different types of clones and spacing between plants on the components of the water balance in eucalyptus crops. Therefore, the distribution of precipitation in the crops was evaluated (rainfall: incident above the crop; intercepted by canopy and leaf litter; and rain that reaches the ground). For the collection of rainfall intercepted by the canopy, 54 rain gauges were installed evenly distributed in each population density (18 per spacing) within the experiment, with collections carried out every 15 days. The monitoring of soil moisture was carried out monthly, from the collection of soil in trenches 2 m deep. This study was conducted from August 2019 to December 2020, at the Centro de Ciências Agrarias (CECA) located in the municipality of Rio Largo, State of Alagoas, which has an agrometeorological station about 1 km from the 3-year-old clonal plantation, planted in 2017, with clones: VE41 and I144, with different spacings (3 x 2, 3 x 3 and 3 x 4 m). Internal precipitation showed linear growth when compared to total open precipitation. The flow through the trunk represented a great contribution of water entry mainly for the smallest spacings, the effective precipitation was greater in denser spacings, due to the greater number of plants per m². The interception rate was lower in higher rainfall, increasing in smaller rainfall. In both clones, the smallest spacings will demonstrate greater plant height, whereas diameter at breast height (DBH) showed linear growth from the smallest to the largest spacing.