DRIP IRRIGATION SCHEDULING IN TOMATO (Lycopersicon esculantum MILL.) A. Abdul Haris 1 * and Sunil Kumar 2* 1 ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, ICAR Parisar, P.O. B.V.College, Patna, Bihar, India. 2 Department of Horticulture, North Eastern Hill University, Tura Campus, Chandmari-794 0002, West Garo Hills District, Meghalaya *E-mail: abdulharis123@rediffmail.com.sunu159@yahoo.co.in ABSTRACT: A field experiment was conducted during the year 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 at Sabajpura farm, LWEERP, Patna on drip irrigation scheduling in tomato. The experiment was conducted in split plot design with irrigation water equivalent to 100, 80 and 60% ET (Evapo Transpiration) in main plots and water as per daily, alternate days and once in three days schedule in sub-plots. Observations regarding yield (q/ha) and water use efficiency (q/ha - cm ) was undertaken. This parameter showed better response at 80%ET when plant received irrigation once in three days except for water use efficiency. Yield of tomato per hectare was maximum at irrigation 80% ET (838.5, 967.72, 895.52q/ha, respectively in three consecutive years) and was significantly higher than 100 % Evapo-Transpiration treatment except second year of observations. Irrigation once in three days gave maximum yield (824.10, 940.23 and 904.76q/ha respectively in three consecutive years). Water use efficiency was significantly higher under 80 % ET (96.71q/ha - cm ) during the first year. In the 60% ET treatment irrigation once in three days gave maximum water use efficiency (73.07 and 74.18q/ha - cm during first and third year) except second year where maximum water use efficiency (99.23q/ha - cm ) under daily irrigation schedule was observed. Keywords : Drip irrigation, evapo-transpiration, water use efficiency, tomato. Tomato is a major solanaceous crop next to potato considered as remunerative vegetable crop in India. It is a rich source of minerals, vitamins and organic acids, used as raw in salad, fetch greater demand in processing industry for making ketchup, sauce and puree. Drip irrigation, a boon to today’s era of high-tech agriculture, needs to be exploited to its fullest extent. The system has proved its superiority over other conventional methods of irrigation, especially in fruit and vegetable crops owing to precise and direct application of water in the root zone. It is necessary for the vegetable crops grower to know how much water and when it should be applied to a particular crop for enhancing its productivity and can fetch good amount by increasing its marketability. Since, drip irrigation saves 30-40% fertilizer/chemical with enhanced quality of produce and yield as compared to surface irrigation and also helpful in reducing labour cost, salt concentration in the root zone and disease incidence. Therefore, an effort has been laid out keeping all these in view to study the water requirement and irrigation scheduling on tomato with the objective to find out the optimum schedule of irrigation for maximum tomato yield and water use efficiency. MATERIALS AND METHODS A field experiment was conducted at ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna during 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 on tomato. The tomato seed S-41 (Gotya, a Mahyco hybrid) was sown in nursery during first week of September and transplanted at the spacing of 60x60cm in the first week of October. The experiment was laid out in split plot design with three replications. The treatments as the main plot factors were irrigation level at 100% (I 1 ), 80% (I 2 ) and 60% (I 3 ) ET (Evapo-transpiration) while as the sub-plot factors were scheduling at daily (S 1 ), once in two days (S 2 ) and once in three days (S 3 ). The drip irrigation systems were consisted of 2lph capacity with online drippers. One lateral for one row of crop with one dripper per plant was adopted in each plot. Each sub-plot consisted of ten rows and ninety plants. The daily irrigation was applied in drip treatments at 1kg/cm 2 pressure. The daily pan evaporation was used to compute the daily water requirement of the crop through drip systems. The effective rainfall was computed by considering the pan evaporation and precipitation received during irrigation intervals. Tomatoes were harvested several times and data were added to estimate the fruit yield and water use efficiency during experimentation and analyzed using www.hortflorajournal.com HortFlora Research Spectrum, 3(2): 184-186 (June 2014) ISSN : 2250-2823 Received : 21-03-2014 Accepted : 27-04-2014 Author's Copy ICV: 4.79 GIF: 0.287