Effect of Drip Irrigation Management and Different Soilless Culture on Growth and Yield of Tomato Grown in Naturally Ventilated Greenhouse

Abstract

The present project was to study the effect of drip irrigation management under soil and different soilless media such as coir pith and saw dust for the crop tomato growing inside a naturally ventilated greenhouse. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design and the entire area was divided into 27 plots having nine treatments with three replications for each treatment. The average water requirement for the crop for the entire crop period is taken as 2 litre/day/plant. Crops were supplied with drip irrigation at the rate of 50%, 75% and 100% of the total crop water requirement to all the three media. The crop inside the naturally ventilated greenhouse in the soil with drip irrigation of 1.0 l/day/plant (50 % irrigation level) performed well during the experiment with a water use efficiency of 117.96 kg/ha mm and average yield of 14.81 t/ha. The crops in the soil media give higher yield than the soilless media. In case of coir pith, the treatment with 2.0 l/day/plant (100 % irrigation level) recorded the highest yield (7.93 t/ha) where as in sawdust the highest yield (2.50 t/ha) is obtained for the treatment having 1.0 l/day/ plant irrigation. The highest water use efficiency values were obtained for treatments with drip irrigation of 1.0 l/day/ plant for all the growing media. So 50% irrigation level in soil is found to be best suited for tomato cultivation of LE-66 Variety through drip irrigation.