The objective of this study was to determine the response coefficient to water stress in the commercial and total yield of papaya fruits grown in the northern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The experiment was conducted in an area of UENF/PESAGRO-RIO in the municipality of Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, from 25/04/2006 to 18/05/2007, using the papaya cultivar Hybrid UENF/CALIMAN01. The experiment had a randomized block design with five treatments [replacement of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) by 50% (T1), 75% (T2), 100% (T3), 125% (T4) and 150% (T5)], with four replications. The highest real commercial yield of the crop after 13 months of growth and four harvest months was 38.78 t ha-1 (T3) and the highest total real yield was 49.42 t ha-1 (T5). After 13 months of growth and 4 harvest months of the papaya cultivar Hybrid UENF/CALIMAN01 the response coefficient for commercial fruit yield (ky) was 1.4581 and 0.5674 for total yield.
Carica papaya L.; sensitivity coefficients; water deficit
