Summary:

Fruit production plays an important role in both national agriculture and economy. In order to keep the present supply markets, which means the actual production level, we have to ensure the high quality of fruit offered to customers. In our climate soil drought is one of the crucial factor significantly controlling the quantity and quality of the fruit crop. Therefore irrigation of orchards and small fruit plantations has become an indispensable element of fruit production. The de-velopment of irrigation itself is controlled by the shortages of water. It is important to optimize the ways of using our moderate water resources in the process of orchard development. It should be related to not only modern and economical
irrigation systems but also with the introduction of rational criteria of irrigation to orchard farms. However, new technologies cannot find their way to predominantly small farms and the lack of reliable information makes the whole situations even worse. The information needed should be collected through surveys conducted during national conferences and fairs. The aim of the investigations was to estimate the area of irrigated orchard and plantations, collecting the information about the technological ideas and practical usage of irrigation criteria as well as the number of water sources used. In order to gather all the data, in 2009 a survey was carried out during all important orchard meetings organized on the territory of Poland. 928 farms in 12 regions with the total area of 10362 ha, took part in the survey. The data obtained suggest that the main form of orchard irrigation is drip irrigation (ca.78%) and the main source of water is depth wells (82%). Unfortunately, more than 80% of fruit grower regulate the amount of water and the frequency of irrigation without any reliable criteria, which calls for an urgent implementation of simple methods estimating water needs of orchard plants.