Abstract:
Experiment was conducted at the Department of Agricultural Engineering Farm land of
the Federal University of Technology, Akure, during January- April, 2013/2014 dry season to
investigate the response of two different cultivars of tomato under drip irrigation. The
treatments were based on four different water regimes; with T1 receiving 100% available water
(AW) as control while T2 , T3 and T4 received 75%, 50% and 25% of AW respectively. Local
cultivar of tomato called Pyriforme Alef- pear (tomato from Kano) and the hybrid cultivar
called Roma tomato were planted at a spacing of 0.5 m by 0.4 m. The results indicated that T1,
full treatment for hybrid cultivar produced the highest fruit yield of 12.10 ton/ha and T2, low
water regime treatment for local cultivar produced lowest fruit yield of 7.82 ton/ha in the
cropping season respectively. However, the total water use of 376.70 mm was recorded for T1,
351.74 mm for T2 and 326.78 mm for T3 and 301.66 mm for T4 respectively. The water use
efficiency determined for the two cultivars of tomato planted in the cropping season ranged
between 26.7 - 32.3 kg/ha/mm for local cultivar and 30.8 - 35.2 kg/ha/mm for the hybrid
cultivar of tomato respectively. The predicted values for yield under polynomial and linear
functions showed that local tomato (r = 1) gave a better yield prediction than hybrid cultivar (r
= 0.6).
