**1. Introduction**

Asparagus is a perennial vegetable species. Therefore, choosing the most advantageous cultivars for cultivation is a very important factor in yielding. Thanks to intensive

**Citation:** Rolbiecki, R.; Rolbiecki, S.; Figas, A.; Jagosz, B.; Prus, P.; Stachowski, P.; Kazula, M.J.; Szczepanek, M.; Ptach, W.; Pal-Fam, F.; et al. Response of Chosen American *Asparagus officinalis* L. Cultivars to Drip Irrigation on the Sandy Soil in Central Europe: Growth, Yield, and Water Productivity. *Agronomy* **2021**, *11*, 864. https://doi.org/10.3390/

Academic Editor: Aliasghar Montazar

Received: 31 March 2021 Accepted: 25 April 2021 Published: 28 April 2021

agronomy11050864

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

breeding work carried out in many countries around the world, new cultivars of asparagus are quickly emerging. New cultivars of asparagus are usually very fertile, with relatively high soil and water requirements [1,2]. Therefore, to obtain maximum marketable yields of a given asparagus cultivar, it is recommended to create optimal growth and development conditions during the growing season. Maximum asparagus production possibilities can be achieved by applying organic and mineral fertilization adapted to species nutritional needs and ensuring optimal humidity, with the use of irrigation supplementing deficiency in precipitation. Due to the specific method of cultivation, i.e., harvesting of spears in early spring, the height and quality of asparagus sprouts depend on the amount of ingredients stored in asparagus rootstocks during the growing season of the previous year [1–3].

In recent years in Poland, asparagus (*Asparagus officinalis* L.) has been observed as a vegetable gaining increasing economic significance. On the one hand, this phenomenon is related to the increase in exports of asparagus spears to European Union countries (mainly Germany), and on the other hand, with an increase in demand for this valuable vegetable among domestic consumers, changing their eating habits noticeably. Basic "heavy" species of vegetables, primarily root vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, parsley or red beet, are replaced with low-caloric species with high biological and flavor values [1,2].

Asparagus is a plant grown primarily in light soils with low water content, i.e., limited retention capacity [1,4]. On the one hand, due to a deep-reaching and well-developed root system, asparagus is relatively resistant to water deficiency in soil [5–7]. On the other hand, asparagus, as a light soil plant, reacts very positively to irrigation treatments, which are used in the postharvest period, usually from June to August, in the climatic and soil conditions of Central Europe. Postharvest irrigation significantly increases the yield of asparagus spears in the following year [3,4,8–16].

One of the elements of sustainable plant production, which has the task of protecting the soil and plant raw materials, is melioration treatments, among which drip irrigation is of great importance in commercial crops. The aim of the study was to verify the response of 13 chosen American asparagus cultivars grown for green spear production to surface drip irrigation on sandy soil in the region of central Europe (Poland).
