Impact of Drip Irrigation Scheduling On Fruit Quality Parameters and Water Use Efficiency On Tomato Plant (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) Under Unheated Greenhouse

To evaluate the effects of irrigation scheduling on fruit quality parameters and water use efficiency. Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) were grown on a fine sandy soil using drip irrigation and polyethylene mulch. Under typical Sous Massa production conditions. Capacitive sensors were used to automatically schedule irrigations. And twelve irrigation treatments have been applied with a combination between three doses (50%, 75 % and 100 % maximal evapotranspiration (ETM) and frequencies (f=0.10, f=15 % and f=20%). The result of this study shows that irrigation dose and frequency doesn’t affect fruit quality in terms of fruit size. In fact, it was between 73 and 74 mm for all used treatments. But they can have a slight effect on total yield. So, we can save a lot of water, between 25 and 50%, with tolerable loss of tomato yield. The rate of unmarketable fruit is affected by irrigation dose and a perfect correlation with exponential equation was found between water use efficiency and irrigation dose