Effect of Drip Lateral Spacing and Irrigation Amount on Tomato and Onion Crops Cum Water Productivity at Kobo Girrana Valley, Ethiopia

Irrigation system in Kobo-Girrana valley is extensively developed into modern drip irrigation. Tomato and onion are among the major vegetables grown under drip irrigation. However, the drip lateral spacing was fixed to 1m for all irrigated crops. This leads to low crop water productivity, loss of land, less net return income and un-optimized irrigation production. An on-station experiment was conducted to determine the effects of drip line spacing and irrigation amount on yield, irrigation water use efficiency and net return income. The experimental treatments were: two lateral spacing of single (0.5 and 1m) row and double (1 and 2m) row corresponding to onion and tomato test crops and three irrigation amounts (pan coefficients /Kp/ = 0.8, 1.0 and 1.2). The experimental design was factorial arranged in RCBD. The experimental results revealed that there was an interaction effect between the lateral spacing and irrigation amounts on marketable yield and water productivity of the test crops. Application of 0.8 Kp with 2m lateral spacing and 1.2 Kp with 1m lateral spacing provided relatively higher marketable yield of tomato and onion respectively. Similarly, high water productivity was recorded with same irrigation depths and spacing. This result generally revealed that one lateral design for each two plant rows gave high net income than the one lateral design for each one plant row for drip irrigated fresh marketable yield of onion and tomato.

Keywords:

Lateral spacing, Water productivity Marketable yield, Pan coefficient,

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