International Journal of Agriculture and Food Security. Vol. 1(1), pp. 001-011, October, 2013.© Advanced Scholars Journals

Full length research paper

Water management and appropriate irrigation system for greenhouse tomato production in soilless media

 ALAGHA, S.A.¹ AND SANGODOYIN, A.Y²

 ¹Department of Agricultural Engineering Technology,Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, P.M.B. 1019, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria.

²Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering University of Ibadan,Ibadan, Nigeria. 

*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] 

Accepted 26 September, 2013

 Abstract

Soilless farming is an advanced agricultural mechanization method recently practiced in many countries of the world where agricultural soils are scarce, like Israel and Japan or where alternative to soil cropping is desirable like Florida and Californian. Apart from the weather condition, one major requirement which is very crucial to successful soilless farming in a greenhouse is the choice of irrigation method and water management skill. Sprinkler and drip irrigation systems were designed, constructed and calibrated. These were used to fertigate the tomato crop with a pre-mix NPK 20:20:20 liquid fertilizer in various soilless media. Water use efficiencies of tomato were compared under the sprinkler and the drip irrigation systems, benefit-cost ratio of producing tomato using the two irrigation systems were determined. The uniformity coefficience obtained for the sprinkler unit was 91% while the emission uniformity of the drip was 95%.Sprinkler used up to 3 times the amount of water used by the drip and water used efficiency of tomato varied from 5.4 to 6.8 g/l under sprinkler and 16.7 to 24.4 g/l under drip irrigation. The benefit-cost ratio of drip irrigation versus micro sprinkler irrigation was 2:1. Yield of tomato under drip irrigation was twice the yield under the sprinkler irrigation and also drip produced tomato of higher marketable quality than sprinkler. Drip irrigation system is a recommended practice for greenhouse-grown tomato in the study area.

Key words: Soilless media, appropriate irrigation system, greenhouse, tomato, water use efficiency.