TOMATO ROOT'S DISTRIBUTION AND WATER UPTAKE: CONTRIBUTION FOR TRICKLE IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT

M. Hammami, H. Daghari
Rooting depth and roots water uptake are basic data for irrigation scheduling. To assess such a feature, experiments dealing with roots and water distribution within soil profile are performed during the critical growth stages of trickle irrigated tomato crop. Trails were done in the Medjerda nether valley one of the widest irrigated areas in Tunisia. The same water volume (24 L) was supplied during each irrigation using different emitter discharge rates (2 L/h, 4 L/h and 8 L/h). The results show that the most important fraction of roots (40%) is localized between 10 and 40 cm depth where the highest soil depletion was recorded. The follow up of the soil profile depletion allowed determining the most active root zone and the water uptake rate. On the bare soil, water depletion was the same within whole soil profile; less than 0.05 L/h whereas in the cropped soil, the water depletion rate reached 0.2 L/h within (20–30 cm) layer. However, as the soil content decreased, the roots water uptake decreased and became uniform along the soil profile matched the values recorded within the bare soil profile four days later.
Hammami, M. and Daghari, H. (2007). TOMATO ROOT'S DISTRIBUTION AND WATER UPTAKE: CONTRIBUTION FOR TRICKLE IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT. Acta Hortic. 758, 227-234
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2007.758.26
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2007.758.26
space root's partition, soil water depletion rate, irrigation starting
English

Acta Horticulturae