Evaluation of some selected soil properties of a drip irrigated tomato field at different moisture regimes in South-Western Nigeria
1Ogundipe, E.O., 1Oniya, O.O., 1Abegunrin, T.P. and 2Awe, G.O.
1 Department of Agricultural Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria.
2 Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria.
DOI: 10.36108/laujoces/1202.60.0230
Abstract
Soil properties are important to the development of agricultural crops. This study determined some selected soil properties of a drip irrigated tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum M.) field at different moisture regime in South-Western Nigeria. The experiment was carried out using Randomized Complete Block Design with frequency and depth of irrigation application as the main plot and sub-plot, respectively in three replicates. Three frequencies (7, 5 and 3 days) and three depths equivalent to 100, 75 and 50% of water requirement were used. Undisturbed and disturbed soil samples were collected from 0-5, 5-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm soil layers for the determination of some soil properties (soil texture, organic matter content, bulk density, infiltration rate and saturated hydraulic conductivity) were determined using standard formulae. Soil Water Content (SWC) monitoring was conducted every two days using a gravimetric technique. The soil texture was sandy loam for all the soil depths; average value of soil organic matter was highest (1.8%) in the 0-5 cm surface layer and decreased with soil depth; the soil bulk density value before and after irrigation experiment ranged from 1.48 and 1.73 g/cm3 and 1.5 and 1.76 g/cm3, respectively; there was a rapid reduction in the initial infiltration and final infiltration rate. Saturated hydraulic conductivity show similar trend although the 20-30 cm layer had the lowest value (50.84 mm/h); the SWC affect bulk density during the growing season. The study showed that soil properties especially bulk density and organic matter content affect irrigation water movement at different depth..
Keywords: Soil properties; Drip irrigation; Moisture regime; Depth; Tomato