The morphological and physiological behaviour of grain sorghum plants submitted to different water deficit levels has been extensively characterized. However, plant responses are extremelly dependents of the severity and duration of lhe stress. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the performance of sorghum crop when submitted to different irrigation management levels. This experiment was conducted during 1993/94 growing season in a set of drainage lysimeters under a rain shelter. The sorghum variety Agroceres 3001 was submitted to four irrigation treatments. Irrigations were aplyied when the fraction of plant available water (PAW) were lower than 0.95, 0.85, 0.75 and 0.65, with three replications. Plant height and leaf area index were similar for irrigation management levels at 0.95, 0.85 and 0.75 of PAW. Similar responses were observed for the variables analized when sorghum plants were submitted to 0.75 and 0.85 of PAW. A reduction in crop growth was observed in sorghum plants when irrigation was applyied to maintam PAW above 0.65.
sorghum; irrigation; lysimeter; water availability
