Research Article

Effect of Different Nitrogen Doses and Deficit Irrigation on Nitrogen use Efficiency and Growth Parameters of Tomato Crop under Drip Irrigation System

Masaud Khan1*, Muhammad Jamal Khan1, Shahab Ahmad2, Asad Ali3, Numan Khan3 and Muhammad Adnan Fahad4

1Department of Water Resource Management, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan; 2Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan; 3Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan; 4Al Tayabat Agricultural Materials and Services, Alain, UAE.

Received | October 30, 2019; Accepted | January 17, 2020; Published | March 03, 2020

*Correspondence | Masaud Khan, Department of Water Resource Management, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan; Email: masaud56.mk@gmail.com

Citation | Khan, M., M.J. Khan, S. Ahmad, A. Ali, N. Khan and M.A. Fahad. 2020. Effect of different nitrogen doses and deficit irrigation on nitrogen use efficiency and growth parameters of tomato crop under drip irrigation system. Sarhad Journal of Agriculture, 36(1): 319-323.

DOI | http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.sja/2020/36.1.319.323

Keywords | Nitrogen doses, Water stress, Growth parameters, Nitrogen use efficiency, Tomato

Introduction

Pakistan has one of the best canal systems in the world but still, in its irrigated area the water availability is not ensured (Khan and Khan, 2019). Due to shortages of water resources, sometimes the crops have to survive on the moisture already present in the root zone and occasional rains. As the temperature tends to rise in the summer plants, water demands tends to rise as well, which ultimately results in water stress. Shallow rooted vegetables like tomato, are more susceptible to water stress during early flowering and fruit developmental stage (Edrneadeset al., 1989). Tomato is considered as an important cash crop, indeed it is inelastic demand in Pakistan (Lohano and Mari, 2005). Tomato requires 400-600 mm of water, management allowed deficit of 30% beyond this point yield reduction starts. Crop Coefficient (Kc) value for tomato during its growing season is 0.7 at the beginning of the growing season, 1.05 during mid-season and 0.8 at the end. Similarly, yield response factor (Ky) value ranges from 0.24 to 0.75 (Khan and Khan, 2019).

In the current irrigation scenarios, the field application efficiency is around 50%, which is very low, and the fertilizer use efficiency of the crop is around 33%, which is also on the lower side (Raun and Jhonson, 1999). Nitrogen in the form of nitrate is highly mobile amongst all the plants nutrients and its availability to the crop is usually limited due to its various pathways by which it is lost to the atmosphere or percolate deeply beyond the root zone. These various pathways are leaching, ammonia volatilization and de-nitrification. Due to these losses, the N efficiency decreases considerably. Nitrogen use efficiency is approximately 33% worldwide; the remaining is a loss, which is considerable loss to the farmers (Singandhupe et al., 2003). Compared to basin irrigation of tomato, drip irrigation is a best option for reducing losses due to deep percolation and evaporation and provides water directly to the plant rootzone. Similar is the case with fertilizer; with fertigation system, nutrients can be provided directly to the rootzone, which is good for enhancing the fertilizer use efficiency. In fertigation fertilizer is first dissolved in water and then applied directly to the plant rootzone. Fertigation technique can be used for fertilizer application to all crops, but it is mainly used for cash crops (Khan and Khan, 2019). Despite producing a high yeild to the farmers, tomato is considered the most input demanding crops in terms of fertilizer, water, and labor (Mari et al., 2007). Therefore, multi-year field trails are suggested to evaluate the impact of deficit irrigation strategies and Nitrogen doses on NUE (Patane et al., 2011).

Keeping in view the prevailing water shortage and poor economic conditions of the local farmers, who are still using basin irrigation and recommended Nitrogen doses for tomato cultivation, the current study was planned on using drip irrigation as it requires less water compared to basin irrigation and has high application efficiency of around 90%. In addition, NUE was also studied under water stress and different Nitrogen levels and almost no data is available on the combined influence of water stress and different Nitrogen doses on NUE. Nitrogen was applied using fertigation technique, which can increase Nitrogen use efficiency and farmers’ income.

The study was conducted at the Research Farm of the University of Agriculture Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, having similar agroclimatic conditions to that of the tomato growing area in Peshawar. The research farm is located at 34.02 oN and 71.46 oE with an altitude of 331m. The experiments were conducted during growing season of tomato (March to June 2015 and 2016). Peshawar lies in semi-arid subtropical region with warm to hot climatic condition. Climatic conditions like temperature and rainfall are presented in Figures 4 and 5 respectively.

Table 1: Effect of deficit irrigation and nitrogen doses on tomato fresh to dry weight ratio.

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) of tomato was calculated using the following equation outlined by (Khan and Khan, 2019).

Statistical analysis

The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design. The data was analyzed using two-way ANOVA and the mean comparisons was made using LSD test (Steel and Torie, 1984).

Results and Discussion

Plant height and Nitrogen use efficiency were significantly affected by deficit irrigation. Figure 1 shows that I15 has 0.42% higher plant height compared to I0, while I30 and I45 had 1.3 and 5.5% lower plant height compared to I0. The reason for this decrease in plant height due to deficit irrigation might be lower moisture availability for N mobilization, resulting in decreased vegetative growth and shorter plants (Yuan et al., 2003). Another reason of decreased plant height may be due to deficit irrigation because in water stress condition the plant extends its rooting depth in search of water and for compensation of this extension the plant height is suppressed resulting in shorter plants (Brahma et al., 2007). Figure 2 shows that I15, I30 and I45 had 17, 16 and 24% lower Nitrogen Use efficiency compared to I0. The results of NUE are in close conformation with Du et al. (2017) who reported that NUE increase with increasing irrigation levels. Whereas days to 50% flowering and dry to fresh weight ration were affected non-significantly (Table 1). This might be due to the fact that deficit irrigation promotes early flowering. Hueso et al. (2004) also reported that increasing deficit irrigation promotes early flowering in tomato compared to full irrigation. Maskri et al. (2010), also reported that plant dry to fresh weight ratio was non-significantly affected by deficit irrigation.

Nitrogen doses had non-significant effect on plant height, days to 50% flowering and dry to fresh to fresh weight ratio. The reason for non-significant effect of Nitrogen doses might be high temperature (average temperature above 30 °C) and low humidity during plant growth, that impeded the impact of increasing Nitrogen doses on plant height. This indicates that this parameter depended on the genetic potential of the tomato cultivar. Nitrogen application time and doses had non-significant effect on plant height (Filho et al., 2011). In days to 50% the non-significant effect might be due to the fact that when plants are unable to find the required Nitrogen for their vegetative growth they are forced to reproductive growth. While for non-significant effect of Nitrogen doses on dry to fresh weight ratio the reason might be that water potential for all the N treatments remained constant and hence equal amount of water was taken up by plants. Another reason might be that leaf osmotic potential decreases with increasing Nitrogen doses (Grada et al., 2000). Nitrogen doses had significantly increased NUE. Figure 3 shows an increase of 7, 25 and 68 for N85, N70 and N55, respectively, compared to N100. These results are in close conformation with Du et al. (2017) who reported that NUE decreases with increasing Nitrogen doses.

Conclusions and Recommendations

From the results it is evident that deficit irrigation significantly affects growth parameters and NUE in tomato crop whereas the response of tomato towards Nitrogen doses was non-significant therefore for better growth of tomato crop, deficit irrigation is not recommended.

Novelty Statement

Importance of this research is the Nitrogen Use Efficiency (NUE). Farmers will significantly save water and fertilizer for tomato yield under deficit irrigation regimes.

Author’s Contribution

Masaud Khan: Principal author, did research and field experiments.

Muhammad Jamal Khan: Major supervisor who provided technical guidelines.

Shahab Ahmad: Helped in data collection.

Asad Ali: Helped in field work.

Numan Khan: Helped in material collection.

Muhammad Adnan Fahad: Helped in technical write up.

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