Journal Of Applied Horticulture ISSN: 0972-1045



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Miguel A. del Amor and Francisco M. del Amor

Consejeria de Agricultura y Agua de la Region de Murcia. Plaza Juan XXIII. 30008 Murcia, Spain. Instituto Murciano de Investigacion y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario. C/Mayor s/n. 30150 La Alberca. Murcia. Spain.

Key words: Yield, crop quality, total soluble solids (TSS), drought, stress, Solanum lycopersicon L.

Journal of Applied Horticulture, 2007, volume 9, issue 2, pages 97-100.

Abstract: Field studies were conducted to compare the yield and fruit quality of processing tomatoes in surface and subsurface drip irrigation, with 100 and 50% of crop evapotranspiration (ETc). The results showed that when irrigation was reduced by 50% ETc the subsurface treatment showed higher water content at root depth compared with the on-surface treatment. At 50% ETc subsurface irrigation yield increased by 66.5% compared with the surface treatment. However at 100% ETc no significant difference in total fruit yield was observed between irrigation methods. The superficial and water-stressed treatment increased the pH and the acidity of the fruits but the subsurface treatment did not show differences with respect to the full-irrigation treatments. Our results show that the subsurface drip irrigation method could be reasonably applied for processing tomato when water resources are limited.

Response of tomato plants to deficit irrigation under surface or subsurface drip irrigation



Journal of Applied Horticulture