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AQUASTAT Tomato
AquaCrop
This section presents information on water relations and water management of tomato and provides links to other
AQUAMAPS sources of information.

Crop Information Crop Description and Climate

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) is the second most important vegetable crop next to potato. Present world
production is about 100 million tons fresh fruit from 3.7 million ha.(FAOSTAT, 2001).
Tobacco
Tomato is a rapidly growing crop with a growing period of 90 to 150 days. It is a daylength neutral plant. Optimum
Maize
mean daily temperature for growth is 18 to 25ºC with night temperatures between 10 and 20ºC. Larger di erences
between day and night temperatures, however, adversely a ect yield. The crop is very sensitive to frost.
Sorghum
Temperatures above 25ºC, when accompanied by high humidity and strong wind, result in reduced yield. Night
Wheat temperatures above 2OºC accompanied by high humidity and low sunshine lead to excessive vegetative growth
and poor fruit production. High humidity leads to a greater incidence of pests and diseases and fruit rotting. Dry
Cotton climates are therefore preferred for tomato production.

Alfalfa Tomato can be grown on a wide range of soils but a well-drained, light loam soil with pH of 5 to 7 is preferred.
Waterlogging increases the incidence of diseases such as bacterial wilt. The fertilizer requirements amount, for
Banana high producing varieties, to 100 to 150 kg/ha N, 65 to 110 kg/ha P and 160 to 240 kg/ha K.

Citrus The seed is generally sown in nursery plots and emergence is within 10 days. Seedlings are transplanted in the
eld after 25 to 35 days. In the nursery the row distance is about 10 cm. In the eld spacing ranges from 0.3/0.6 x
Grape 0.6/1 m with a population of about 40,000 plants per ha. The crop should be grown in a rotation with crops such as
maize, cabbage, cowpea, to reduce pests and disease infestations.
Pineapple
The crop is moderately sensitive to soil salinity. Yield decrease at various ECe values is: 0% at ECe 2.5 mmhos/cm,
Potato 10% at 3.5, 25% at 5.0, 50% at 7.6 and 100'/. at ECe 12.5 mmhos/cm. The most sensitive period to salinity is during
germination and early plant development, and necessary leaching of salts is therefore frequently practised during
Groundnut pre-irrigation or by over-watering during the initial irrigation application.

Olive The graph below depicts the crop stages of tomato, and the table summarises the main crop coe cients used for
water management.
Sa ower

Soybean

Sun ower

Bean

Pea

Sugarbeet

Sugarcane

Cabbage

Onion

Pepper

Tomato

Watermelon

CropWat /
CLIMWAT Stages of  Plant Region
Development date
Diagnostic Tools for
Investment Crop Initial Crop Mid- Late Total  
characteristic Development season
FAO Nile

ETo Calculator
Stage length,  30 40 40 25 135 Jan Arid Region
days  35 40 50 30 155 Apr/May Calif., USA
GAEZ
25 40 60 30 155 Jan Calif.,
GeoNetwork Desert USA
35 45 70 30 180 Oct/Nov Arid Region
GLADIS 30 40 45 30 145 Apr/May Mediterranean

HWSD
Depletion 0.3 >> 0.4 0.5 0.3
SoilSTAT Coe cient, p:

WaPOR
Root Depth, m 0.25 >> - 1.0 -
WaterLex

Crop Coe cient,Kc 0.6 >> 1.15 0.7- -  

0.9

Yield Response  0.4 1.1 0.8 0.4 1.05    

Factor, Ky

Water Requirements
Total water requirements (ETm) after transplanting, of a tomato crop grown in the eld for 90 to 120 days, are 400
to 600 mm, depending on the climate. Water requirements related to reference evapotranspiration (ETo) in
mm/period are given by the crop factor (Kc) for di erent crop development stages, or: during the initial stage 0. 4-
0. 5 (10 to 15 days), the development stage 0. 7-0.8 (20 to 30 days), the mid- season stage 1.05-1.25 (30 to 40 days),
the late-season stage 0.8-0.9 (30 to 40 days) and at harvest 0.6-0.65.

Water Supply And Crop Yield

The relationships between relative yield decrease (1 - Ya/Ym) and relative evapotranspiration de cit for the total
growing period are shown in the gure below.

The relationships between relative yield decrease (1 - Ya/Ym) and relative evapotranspiration de cit for the
individual growing periods are shown in the gure below. /
The plant produces owers from bottom to top during the active development of the stem. Fruits can be harvested
while the plant is still owering at the top. Some-times three owering periods related to three harvests can be
distinguished. However, for mechanical harvesting where the fruits are used for tomato paste, only one picking is
made. Water supply needs to be adjusted according to the use of the product, c. g. for salad or paste.

Highest yields of salad tomatoes are obtained by frequent, light irrigation. Where mechanical harvesting is used,
heavy, infrequent irrigation is more appropriate with the last irrigation applied long before harvest.

Following table presents the growth periods of tomato at the rst harvest

Stage Development Stage Stage length, days

0 Establishment 25-35

1 Vegetative 20-25

2 Flowering 20-30

3 Yield formation 20-30

4 Ripening 15-20

Total 100-140 days

 For subsequent harvest periods, 2, 3 and 4 will overlap and an additional 20 to 30 days are required for each
harvest.

The relationship between relative yield decrease (1 - Ya/Ym) and relative evapotranspiration de cit (1 - ETa/ETm) is
given in the following gure. The crop is most sensitive to water de cit during and immediately after transplanting
and during, owering (2) and yield formation (3). Water de cit during the owering period (2) causes ower drop.
Moderate water de cit during the vegetative period (1) enhances root growth.

/
 For high yield and good quality, the crop needs a controlled supply of water throughout the growing period.
Whereas under water limiting conditions some water savings may be made during the vegetative (1) and ripening
(4) periods, water supply should preferably be directed toward maximizing production per ha rattler than
extending the cultivated area under limited water supply.

Water Uptake
The crop has a fairly deep root system and in deep soils roots penetrate up to some 1. 5 m. The maximum rooting
depth is reached about 60 days after transplanting. Over 80 percent of the total water uptake occurs in the rst 0.5
to 0.7 m and 100 per-cent of the water uptake of a full grown crop occurs from the rst 0.7 to 1.5 m (D = 0.7 - 1.5
m). Under conditions when maximum evapotranspiration (ETm) is 5 to 6 mm/ day water uptake to meet full crop
water requirements is a ected when more than 40 percent of the total available soil water has been depleted (p =
0.4).

Irrigation Scheduling
The crop performance is sensitive to the irrigation practices. In general a prolonged severe water de cit limits
growth and reduces yields which cannot be corrected by heavy watering later on. Highest demand for water is
during owering. however, withholding irrigation during this period is sometimes recommended to force less
mature plants into owering in order to obtain uniform owering and ripening. Care should be exercised in this to
avoid damage to the mature plants.

Excessive watering during the owering period (2) has been shown to increase ower drop and reduce fruit set.
Also this may cause excessive vegetative growth and a delay in ripening. Water supply during and after fruit set
must be limited to a rate which will prevent stimulation of new growth at the expense of fruit development. Heavy,
irregular irrigations or dry periods alternating with wet periods should be avoided. For production of salad tomato
with more than one harvest, the crop ourishes best under light, frequent irrigation, well-distributed over the
growing period with the soil depletion level during the di erent growth periods remaining below 40 percent (p <
0.4). This promotes optimum growth during the total growing period and results in high yield of good quality. With
one harvest uniform ripening is required and the depletion level during this period may increase to 60 to 70
percent.

When water supply is limited, application for a salad crop can be concentrated during periods of transplanting,
owering (2) and yield formation (3). For a crop grown for paste production, a more extensive irrigation may be
applied with last heavy irrigation applied prior to owering.

Irrigation Methods
Surface irrigation by furrow is commonly practised. Under sprinkler irrigation the occurrence of fungal diseases
and possibly bacterial canker may become a major problem. Further, under sprinkler, fruit set may be reduced
with an increase in fruit rotting. In the case of poor quality water, leaf burn will occur with sprinkler irriga-tion; this
may be reduced by sprinkling at night and shifting of sprinkler lines with the direction of the prevailing wind. Due
to the crops speci c demands for a high soil water content achieved without leaf wetting, trickle or drip irrigation
has been successfully applied.

Yield
Frequent light irrigation improve the size, shape, juiciness and colour of the fruit, but total solids (dry matter
content) and acid content will be reduced. However, the decrease in solids will lower the fruit quality for
processing. In selecting the irrigation practices consideration must therefore be given to teh type of end product
required. Prolonged water de cits leads to fruit cracking. Where fruit rot is a problem, frequent sprinkler irrigation
should be avoided during the period of yield formation.

A good commercial yield under irrigation is 45 to 65 tons/ha fresh fruit, of which 80 to 90 percent is moisture,
depending on the use of the product. the water utilization e ciency for harvested yield (Ey) for fresh tomatoes is
10 to 12 kg/m3

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