Appropriate ventilation and water management strategy are beneficial to boosting crop yield and quality in greenhouses, and their optimization is crucial for improving water use efficiency (WUE). For this research, the research team set up three irrigation levels based on measurements of the cumulative pan evaporation and three ventilation modes through opening the greenhouse vents at different locations to reveal the effects of ventilation mode and irrigation amount on picking, yield (Y), evapotranspiration (ET), WUE and quality of tomato grown in a solar greenhouse.
Nine treatments were split block designs with ventilation mode as the main treatment and irrigation amount as vice treatment. Each treatment was replicated three times. Results showed that the harvesting time of tomatoes was substantially influenced by ventilation mode as a result of interior temperature differences. The V T treatment was more beneficial to the early maturity of tomatoes than the V ST and V S treatments. The proportion of V T in the first three harvestings was ~36.8 % and ~26.3 % higher than of V ST and V S, respectively. Irrigation amount had a marked effect on ET, Y, WUE, irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE), and irrigation water compensation (I rc). Here, ET, Y, and I rc of K0.9 were 51.7 % and 69.8 %, 11.0 % and 19.6 %, 7.0 %, and 13.5 % higher than those of K0.7 and K0.5 treatments, respectively, while the WUE and IWUE were 13.1 % and 24.8 %, 18.6 % and 28.6 % lower than K0.7 and K0.5, respectively.
However, the significant interaction between ventilation and irrigation was only found on Y, WUE, and IWUE. Both ventilation and irrigation treatments had a considerable effect on soluble solids (TSS), V c, and organic acid. TSS could represent the comprehensive quality of tomatoes because TSS was very significantly positively correlated with the comprehensive quality scores. A better combination of ventilation and irrigation was recommended as V ST × 0.7 AE pan by using the TOPSIS method based on a compromise of Y, quality, and WUE.
Read the complete article at www.researchgate.net.
Gong, Xuewen & Li, Xiaoming & Qiu, Rang jian & Bo, Guokui & Ping, Yinglu & Xin, Qingsong & Ge, Jiankun. (2022). Ventilation and irrigation management strategy for tomato cultivated in greenhouses. Agricultural Water Management. 273. 107908. 10.1016/j.agwat.2022.107908.