IRRIGAZIONE DEFICITARIA DEL POMODORO DA INDUSTRIA NELL’AREALE VENETO: PRIMI RISULTATI

The processing tomato is a globally widespread and high water-demanding crop. Climate change with the following water availability reduction and population growth with the following water demand increase make it necessary to reshape irrigation management to increase its efficiency. In addition, it is needed to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers to diminish the environmental impact. Therefore, an experiment was conducted on processing tomato to evaluate two irrigation levels based on crop evapotranspiration (ETc) (75% ETc and 100% ETc) and four fertilization management (unfertilized; chemical fertilization; not sieved compost; sieved compost < 2 mm). The obtained results showed higher transpiration level (+17.7%) and lower values of fluorescence and SPAD (-2.6% and -3.5% respectively) in the 100% ETc treatment compared with 75% ETc. The crop yield was not significantly affected by the experimental treatments. The irrigation level of 75% ETc significantly reduced the fruits soluble solids content wheras no significant effect was observed on the fruits juice electrical conductivity. Although further experimentations are needed to confirm in the next years the obtained results, these latter indicate that deficit irrigation and organic fertilization are efficient measures to maintain high yields while limiting environmental impact.