What is irrigation frequency?
Irrigation frequency means the number of times you irrigate/water your garden.
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And it is one of the few basics that are often difficult for gardeners to fully, and effectively utilize.
It is safe to add that, the number of times you water/irrigate your garden is dependent on several factors, including, and most importantly, the type of crop, the type of soil, the time of year among others.
In this particular tutorial, our focus is on tomatoes, and we are assuming all other factors constant.
Once a day, twice a day, thrice; once a week, twice a week, thrice….
it is important to bear in mind, that whereas tomatoes is able to tolerate a medium degree of stress, its yield are much improved if a uniform soil moisture regime is maintained.
And that is the goal of irrigating/watering it.
So how frequently should you irrigate your tomato field?
- For one, the number of times (frequency) you irrigate your tomato garden depends on the time of season. When the plants are still small, namely early season, you may irrigate no more than once in a week.
- Second, the number of times you irrigate (frequency) also depends on the texture of soil. In heavy-textured soils (able to retain water within the root zone for long periods), you do well to irrigate no more than every other day.
- If your soils are sandy (and therefore quickly lose water), then there may however be circumstances when it is advisable to irrigate every day, particularly during peak demand (peak demand is that time when the tomato plant require water all the time)
- Third, the number of times you irrigate depends on the stage of growth. Starting from the time of planting until the first fruits start to ripen, irrigation frequency starts to decrease for several reasons
- For one, once fruits start to ripen, the tomato plant starts to senescence. At this point, water use reduces/declines.
- Also, by time of harvesting the tomato fruit, the amount of water that the crop uses is averagely between 25 to 30% less than it uses mid-season. Thus you have to reduce your irrigation frequency appropriately.
- Moreover, moisture stress of some degree is required to increase the soluble solids concentration of the tomato fruit as harvest nears. Here the tradeoff is yield loss, so the goal should be to ensure it (yield loss due to induced stress) is at a minimum.
Related Posts
- Tutorial #1 - Basic steps to design a Drip Irrigation system (10m×10m) for tomato growing
- Tutorial #2 - Basic steps for laying out irrigation system
Feel free to ask any questions, make suggestions from your own experiences.
I will also gladly take a personal initiative to guide any farmer who wishes for a deeper knowledge of how to go about irrigating his/her farm.