TOMPOUSSE, A MODEL OF YIELD PREDICTION FOR TOMATO CROPS: CALIBRATION STUDY FOR UNHEATED PLASTIC GREENHOUSES

Tompousse is a simple model for the simulation of the weekly production of greenhouse tomatoes, developed in France for heated greenhouses. Work has been carried out to adapt it to the unheated plastic greenhouses of Portugal. Tompousse predicts the weekly production in terms of the number and fresh weight of harvested fruits. These outputs are important for the growers because they enable them to plan ahead the marketing of their production. Tompousse was selected because it requires a little amount of climatic and crop data which is an important aspect at the grower's level.

In the present study, a data set of three production cycles was used to calibrate some growth and development relations of the model and to assess the quality of the simulations. It appeared that the same basic rules of crop yield formation apply for a large range of growing conditions, not only for heated but also for unheated greenhouses.