Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61

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Agricultural Water Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat

Integrating deficit irrigation into surface and subsurface drip irrigation as a T

strategy to save water in arid regions
⁎
Hussein M. Al-Ghobari, Ahmed Z. Dewidar
Agricultural Engineering Department, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Development of sustainable and efficient irrigation strategies is a priority for producers faced with water
Subsurface drip irrigation shortages. A promising management strategy for improving irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) is deficit
Deficit irrigation irrigation, which attempts to optimize yield and IWUE. Soil water use, crop yield and IWUE of tomato were
Irrigation water use efficiency evaluated for two consecutive years under two types of irrigation methods (subsurface and surface drip irri-
Tomato
gation) and three irrigation strategies: 1.0 of full irrigation supply (T1), 0.8 of full irrigation supply (T2) and 0.6
Water saving
of full irrigation supply (T3). The results showed that the highest yields were found in the plots irrigated by
subsurface drip irrigation at T1 (94.1 ton/ha) and T2 (81.4 ton/ha). Conversely, the fully stressed treatment (T3)
reduced the amount of irrigation water by 40%, but significantly decreased mean tomato yield by 25.6% and
26.1% under subsurface and surface drip irrigation, respectively, as compared to T1. The maximum IWUE
tended to be higher for subsurface drip than for surface drip irrigation system. The greatest IWUEs were obtained
from subsurface drip and surface drip at T3 (19.7 kg/m3 and 18.3 kg/m3), whereas the lowest IWUEs were those
estimated in T1 (15.9 kg/m3 and 14.8 kg/m3, respectively). The primary conclusion is that deficit irrigation
strategies present certain advantages to crop water management with minimal effects on production and quality,
thus contributing to crop sustainability.

1. Introduction
Saudi Arabia, one of the driest and hottest countries in the world, is
roughly located between north latitudes 17 and 31 and east longitudes
37 and 56. Temperatures can reach more than 50 °C (122 °F) in some
areas, producing overwhelmingly hot and dry conditions. Long-term
average rainfall across the country is 114 mm per year (DeNicola et al.,
2015). High temperatures and low precipitation together with high
variability of both factors increase evapotranspiration, reduce soil
moisture, and damage the soil by mechanical weathering (Alkolibi,
2002). These conditions have a negative impact on agriculture and
water availability which made Saudi Arabia a very poor country in
terms of agricultural potential and water resources.
The country has scanty rains and no lakes, rivers, or streams. Total
municipal water use in Saudi Arabia is about 9%. Agriculture accounts
for 88% and industry consumes only 3% of the available water (Al-
Zahrani and Baig, 2011). Mismanagement of water use in the agri-
cultural sector and an increasingly Westernized and consumerism-based
shift in lifestyle are mostly to blame for Saudi Arabia's water-starved
status, as precious groundwater sources have been injudiciously used
over many years to the point of depletion. Achieving greater irrigation
water use efficiency (IWUE) is a primary challenge and it includes the
employment of techniques and practices that deliver irrigation water to
the crops more accurately. In this context, a combination of deficit ir-
rigation (DI), surface drip irrigation (SDI) and subsurface drip irrigation
(SSDI) may play an important role in increasing IWUE. DI is a water
conservation technique that exposes crops to a particular level of water
stress during a certain developmental phase or throughout the entire
growing season without a significant reduction in yield (Pereira et al.,
2012).
The risk of DI is low because the response curve of crop yield to
water supply often has a wide plateau, and a considerable amount of
water can be saved without a significant yield reduction compared with
full irrigation (Zhang, 2003). Kumar et al. (2007) studied the effect of
DI on water saving and onion yield. They demonstrated that applying
80% and 60% of crop water requirements bring about yield reductions
of 14% and 38%, and saved 18% and 33% of irrigation water compared
to full irrigation within 2 years, respectively. Patanè et al. (2011) in-
dicted that applying a 50% reduction in crop water for the entire or
even partial growing season helps reduce fruit losses and maintain a
high fruit quality. According to Nahar and Gretzmacher (2002), glu-
cose, fructose, sucrose, malic acid, ascorbic acid and citric acid content

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: adewidar@ksu.edu.sa (A.Z. Dewidar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2018.07.010
Received 25 January 2018; Received in revised form 26 June 2018; Accepted 12 July 2018
0378-3774/ Published by Elsevier B.V.
H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar
increased significantly with water stress. Besides, DI reduces production
costs, conserves water and minimizes leaching of nutrients and pesti-
cides in to ground water (Nuruddin et al., 2003).
The use of pressurized irrigation system applying water through an
emitter on soil surface (SDI) or below the soil surface (SSDI) at a small
operational pressure and minimizing soil evaporation has been popular
for saving water and improving IWUE (Camp, 1998; Lamm et al., 1995;
Ayars et al., 2015). Cui et al. (2008) pointed out SDI and SSDI can
improve IWUE by 26.7–46.4% and fruit quality of table grape without
detrimental effect on the fruit yield in arid region. Hassanli et al. (2009)
conducted a comparison between three irrigation methods: SDI, SSDI
and furrow irrigation. The results demonstrated that the minimum
amount of water along with highest use efficiency, is delivered through
SSDI and SDI, respectively. del Amor and del Amor (2007) performed a
comparison between SDI and SSDI systems. They found that higher
tomato crop yields were achieved by SSDI as compared to SDI in sandy
soil. Similarly, Al-Omran et al. (2010) concluded that SSDI increased
the IWUE and yield of their tomato crop by producing a good moisture
distribution in the root zone, leading to a conservation of irrigation
water.
Information on deficit irrigation scheduling is limited for many
crops especially tomato, which is a vital horticultural crop within arid
regions (Maas and Hoffman, 1977). Accordingly, in light of water
limitations, there is a necessity to establish different irrigation strate-
gies that may facilitate the conservation of water under both high
evaporative demand and chronic shortages without incurring con-
siderably influencing yields. For this reason, different deficit irrigation
approaches have been applied to tomato plants under SDI and SSDI
systems. Considering the issues analyzed above, the objectives of the
present study are i) to evaluate the response of tomato yield and quality
to various combinations of DI, SDI and SSDI, and ii) to determine the
minimum irrigation treatment in tomatoes where the production and
crop quality are least affected.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Site description
Field experiments were conducted at the experimental site of King
Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The geographical coordinates of
the location are a latitude of 24.43 °N, longitude of 46.43°4 E, and al-
titude of 635 m. The climate in this region is definitely semi-arid with
an average yearly precipitation of 100 mm. During the experimental
period, the maximum and minimum mean monthly temperatures were
29.74 and 19.94 °C in May and February, respectively. The highest
mean relative humidity was 30.29% during April, whereas the lowest
one was 24% in February. Other climatic parameters are shown in
Fig. 1. The soil has been classified as SC, clayey sand (Baylot et al.,
2013) comprising of 72.6% sand, 12.75% silt and 14.65% clay. Soil
bulk density was 1.64, 1.61 and 1.59 g cm−3 for soil depths at 0.2, 0.4
and 0.6 m, respectively. More information on the soil texture, field
capacity (FC), wilting point (WP) and bulk density (ρd) (Table 1).
2.2. Irrigation scheduling
The experimental area was prepared, leveled and partitioned into
two main fields isolated with buffer zones of 6 m. Each field was sub-
divided into nine plots with surface-area dimensions of 7 m in width
x 10 m in length (Fig. 2). The plots in the first field were irrigated by SDI
system, whereas SSDI was used to irrigate the plots in the second field.
The plots in the both fields were irrigated daily with various amounts of
water according to the daily reference crop evapotranspiration calcu-
lated by the FAO Penman-Monteith equation (Eq. 1) (Fig. 3). The irri-
gation treatments were composed of three approaches: T1 = 100% of
crop evapotranspiration, T2 = 80% of crop evapotranspiration and
T3 = 60% of crop evapotranspiration. The amounts of water were
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Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61
recorded at every irrigation event through multi-jet dry dial water
meters settled along the sub-main lines.
(900U )
0.408Δ(Rn -G) +γ ⎡ T+2372 ⎤ (es−ea )
ETo= ⎣ ⎦
Δ + γ(1+0.34U2 ) (1)
where ETo is the daily reference crop evapotranspiration rate (mm/d),
Rn is the net radiation at the canopy surface (MJ/m2/day), G is the soil
heat flux at the soil surface (MJ/m2/day), T is the mean daily air
temperature (°C), γ is the psychometric constant (kPa/°C), U2 is the
mean daily wind speed at a 2.0 m height (m/s), es is the mean satura-
tion vapor-pressure (kPa), ea is the mean actual vapor-pressure (kPa),
(es-ea) is the saturated vapor pressure deficit (kPa) and Δ is the slope of
the saturated vapor pressures temperature curve (kPa/°C).
2.3. Measurement of soil water content
Once the experiment initiated, the volumetric soil water content
was measured daily to a depth of 0.6 m at 0.2 m intervals in each of the
irrigation treatments using multi-sensor capacitance probes
(EnviroSCAN). The EnviroSCAN device (Sentek Pty Ltd, Stepney,
Australia) is a multi-sensor capacitance probe measuring water content
in different depths of a soil profile. A support rod was fitted with several
sensors and inserted into a polyvinyl chloride access tube installed in
the soil. Each sensor consists of two conductive rings acting as capacitor
with the surrounding medium (solid soil, air and water) as dielectric.
Sensor readings were normalized to a so-called scaled frequency SF
= (Fa – Fs) / (Fa – Fw), where Fa is the sensor specific reading in air,
Fw is the reading in water and Fs is the frequency reading in moist soil.
Fa and Fw were determined for each sensor in the laboratory. Soil water
content (θES) was calculated from SF by means of a standard default
calibration relationship (Eq. 2), which generally delivers adequate re-
sults for common soil types (Paltineanu and Starr, 1997; Evett et al.,
2002). Data were measured, processed and stored in a standard RT6-
logger from Sentek Company, from which the actual database was
downloaded.
0.4040
SF = 0.1957×θES +0.0285 (2)
2.4. Crop data
Tomato plants (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill, GS-12) were trans-
planted into the field on February 12, 2015 and February 12, 2016. The
seedlings were cultivated in a single row with a line spacing of 0.8 m
and an interplant spacing of 0.4 m. The tomato plants were grown for
about 97 days, which as divided into four stages namely initial (20
days), development (30 days), middle (32 days) and late season (15
days). The crop coefficients during the crop season were 0.70, 1.15,
0.90 and 0.75 during the initial, developmental, middle, and late season
stages, respectively (Allen et al., 1998).
All plots received a basic application of 300 kg N/ha and 100 kg
K2SO4/ha. Herbicides and insecticides were applied to each plot when
necessary. The plant height, number of branches, fresh leaf weight,
fresh stem weight and fresh plant weight were determined. Leaf sam-
ples were collected, washed in distilled water and dried at 70 °C in
forced air-oven until the weight became constant (48–72 h) to calculate
the dry matter contents. The early and total yields were recorded in
each treatment for all replications, and the data were presented as tons
per hectare. Five tomato samples were collected, juiced and filtered for
measuring tomato content of total soluble solids (TSS, %), ascorbic acid
(mg/100 g FW) and titratable acidity (TA, %) (Carrapiso and García,
2000).
2.5. Yield reductions and water saving
Reductions in the total fruit yield and decrease in water use were
H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61

Fig. 1. Daily values of climatic conditions at the experimental site throughout the growing cycles of tomatoes in 2015 and 2016.

Table 1 with 3 replicates. All parameters were subjected to analysis of variance

Physical characterristics of different soil layers. (ANOVA) to evaluate the statistical effect of irrigation treatments on
Soil layer depth Sand (%) Silt (%) Clay (%) FC (%) WP (%)
tomato yields and components using SPSS version 20.0 software. The
ρd (g cm-3)
(cm) least significant differences method (LSD) was used to differentiate the
means at a significance level of p < 0.05 (Snedecor and Cochran,
0–20 74.81 11.77 13.42 14.74 5.32 1.64 1989).
20–40 72.64 11.65 15.71 17.27 6.54 1.61
40–60 70.35 14.82 14.83 15.90 6.58 1.59
3. Results and discussion
FC = field capacity, WP = wilting point and ρd = bulk density.

3.1. Soil water status

determined by using the following equations (Ismail, 2010):

yield of T2 or T3 Fig. 4 shows the average volumetric water content (VWC) data in
Reduction in yield= ⎡ ×100⎤ response to the different irrigation treatments under SDI and SSDI in
⎢
⎣ yield of T1 ⎥
⎦ (3)
2015 and 2016. As shown in Fig. 4, the moisture distribution was di-
water consumption of T2 or T3 rectly associated with the amount of water added to whether full (T1)
Water saving= ⎡ ×100⎤ or deficit-irrigated (T2 and T3) treatments. The VWC values during the
⎢
⎣ water consumption of T1 ⎥
⎦ (4)
initial stage until 20 days after planting were high and similar to each
where T1 = 100% of crop evapotranspiration, T2 = 80% of crop eva- other in SDI and SSDI. This was due to the large amount of water that
potranspiration and T3 = 60% of crop evapotranspiration. had been applied during the transplanting stage. The VWC values at
depths of 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 m were either above or near the field capacity
2.6. Irrigation water use efficiency (not shown).
After starting the irrigation treatments, the level of VWC was the
IWUE is the ratio between the yield and total amount of water ap- highest in the T1 treatment followed by the T2 and T3 treatments in
plied (Wang et al., 2010): both SDI and SSDI systems. The relative increase of VWC for T1 in SDI
and SSDI that was observed after 30 days after planting was the result
n
of initiation in the tomato.
IWUE=∑ [(y)/(wa)]
i=1 (5) Soil moisture measurements at 60 days after planting had sig-
nificant variation in VWC when T1, T2 and T3 were compared. For
where IWUE is irrigation water use efficiency (kg/m3), n is the number example, the values of VWC in the plots irrigated with T1 under SDI and
of plots with each irrigation strategy, y is the total yield (kg) and wa is SSDI were on average 22% and 24.5% as compared to T2 (18% and
the amount of seasonally applied irrigation water (m3). 19%) and T3 (17% and 16%), respectively.
At the beginning of the leaf yellowing stage (80 days after planting),
2.7. Statistical analysis VWC values in the irrigation treatments were reduced due to ripening
of tomatoes. Overall, Greater moisture content below the soil surface
The experimental design was a completely randomized block design with buried drip tape (SSDI) was captured for tomato to be

57
H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61

Fig. 2. Layout of the experimental field for three irrigation strategies: T1 (full irrigation supply), T2 (80% of full irrigation supply), and T3 (60% of full irrigation
supply)under surface drip (SDI) and subsurface drip irrigation (SSDI).

Fig. 3. Daily values of reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) at the experi-

mental site throughout the growing cycles of tomatoes in 2015 and 2016.

advantageous by reducing evaporation. Camp (1998), reported similar

conditions in the surface of a sandy loam when drip tape was buried at
0.1 m depth.

3.2. Water use by the crop

Fig. 5 shows the average amount of water applied to the fully and
deficit-irrigated plots under SSDI and SDI in 2015 and 2016. During the
initial stage, the maximum irrigation depths added to the plots T1, T2
Fig. 4. Average values of volumetric water content using low (T3), medium
and T3 under SSDI and SDI were few as they were 5.5 and 5.8 mm, 4.4 (T2), and high (T1) irrigation treatments for SDI and SSDI systems during
and 4.6 mm and 3.3 and 3.4 mm per day, respectively. In the devel- growth stages of the tomato crop in 2015 and 2016.
opment stage, there was a slight increase in the depths of water applied
due to the flowering of tomatoes.
During the late-season stage, the depth of irrigation decreased due
During the mid-season stage, there was a steady increase in the
to the maturity of the tomatoes where it reached 7.4 mm, 6 mm and
amount of water applied where the maximum irrigation depths reached
4.5 mm in the plots T1, T2 and T3 irrigated by SSDI, respectively.
10 mm, 8 mm and 6 mm in the plots T1, T2 and T3, respectively, under
Similarly, the irrigation depth decreases in the plots T1, T2 and T3
SSDI. This is mainly because increasing the temperature and forming
those irrigated by SDI were 7.8 mm, 6.2 mm and 4.6 mm, respectively.
the tomatoes. Correspondingly, the increases in irrigation depths for the
plots T1, T2 and T3 under SDI throughout the same period were
10.4 mm, 8.3 mm and 6.2 mm, respectively.

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H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61

Fig. 5. Average amounts of water applied using low (T3), medium (T2), and high (T1) irrigation treatments for surface (SDI) and subsurface drip irrigation (SSDI)
during the growing cycles of tomatoes in 2015 and 2016.

Table 2
Average vegetative growth traits for tomato plants using different irrigation strategies during the growth cycles in 2015 and 2016.
Irrigation system Irrigation treatments APH (cm) NOB LFW (g) SFW (g) PFW (g) LDW (g) SDW (g) PDW (g)

Subsurface (SSDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 75.5a 8.7a 705.4a 196.7a 818.3a 86.7a 50.4a 125.7a
T2 (80 % of ET) 62.7b 6.9c 606.8c 181.7c 675.5c 71.5c 45.3c 113.3c
T3 (60 % of ET) 57.3c 5.2e 512.9e 165.9e 603.9e 63.1e 37.4e 94.6e
Drip (SDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 71.6a 7.2b 678.3b 187.6b 763.4b 82.2b 48.0b 120.8b
T2 (80 % of ET) 58.5c 5.7e 579.1d 168.7d 598.5d 68.0d 42.6d 109.6d
T3 (60 % of ET) 51.7e 4.2f 495.8f 159.3f 543.2f 59.3f 34.8f 89.1f
LSD at 0.05% 3.63 0.94 9.38 5.78 10.57 2.46 2.35 2.59

Values with the same letters within a particular column are not significantly different based on an LSD test at a probability level of 0.05. LSD = least significant
difference, ET = crop evapotranspiration, APH (cm) = average plant height, NOB = number of branches, LFW = leaf fresh weight, SFW = stem fresh weight,
PFW = plant fresh weight, LDW = leaf dry weight, SDW = stem dry weight and PDW = plant dry weight.

Table 3
Average fruit yield components for tomato plants using different irrigation strategies during the growth cycles in 2015 and 2016.
Irrigation system Irrigation treatments Early yield (ton ha−1) Total yield (ton ha−1) Fruit weight (g) Fruit number/ plant

Subsurface (SSDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 53.46a 94.12a 149.23a 31.46a

T2 (80 % of ET) 45.94c 81.44c 138.61c 26.92c
T3 (60 % of ET) 38.56e 69.97e 91.57e 23.61e
Drip (SDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 47.27b 91.98b 140.91b 28.91b
T2 (80 % of ET) 36.93d 78.89d 129.50d 25.05d
T3 (60 % of ET) 29.64f 67.95f 84.76f 21.48f
LSD at 0.05% 1.03 1.58 2.01 0.72

Values with the same letters within a particular column are not significantly different based on an LSD test at a probability level of 0.05. LSD = least significant
difference, and ET = crop evapotranspiration.

Table 4
Average fruit quality traits for tomato plants using different irrigation strategies during the growth cycles in 2015 and 2016.
Irrigation system Irrigation treatments FL (cm) FD (cm) DM (%) TSS (%) VC (mg/100 g FW) TA (%)

Subsurface (SSDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 5.96a 5.86a 5.71a 6.78a 29.56a 0.69a
T2 (80 % of ET) 4.73c 4.75c 4.54c 5.43c 24.23c 0.57c
T3 (60 % of ET) 3.53e 3.55e 3.81e 3.99e 18.12e 0.44e
Drip (SDI) T1 (100 % of ET) 5.71b 5.69b 5.49b 6.57b 28.22b 0.62b
T2 (80 % of ET) 4.49d 4.45d 4.42d 5.21d 22.37d 0.48d
T3 (60 % of ET) 3.28f 3.32f 3.67f 3.89f 16.51f 0.36f
LSD at 0.05% 0.22 0.11 0.1 0.1 0.96 0.02

Values with the same letters within a particular column are not significantly different based on an LSD test at a probability level of 0.05. LSD = least significant
difference, ET = crop evapotranspiration, FL = fruit length, FD = fruit diameter, DM = dry matter, VC = vitamin C, TSS = total soluble solid and TA = total
acidity.

59
H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar
Table 5
Yield reduction and decrease in water use for two types of irrigation methods
and three irrigation strategies.
Treatment Yield reduction % Water saving %
SDI SSDI
T1 (100 % of ET) 0.00 0.00 0
T2 (80 % of ET) 14.23 13.47 20
T3 (60 % of ET) 26.13 25.66 40
SDI = surface drip irrigation, SSDI = subsurface drip irrigation and ET = crop
evapotranspiration.
Fig. 6. IWUE response to yield and seasonal water supply using low (T3),
medium (T2), and high (T1) irrigation treatments for SDI and SSDI during the
growing cycles of tomatoes in 2015 and 2016.
3.3. Comparison of vegetative growth
The response of the tomato crop during the two years demonstrated
that variations within the amount of water applied using different
combinations of deficit irrigation significantly affected the vegetative
growth traits (Table 2). The maximum values of the mean vegetative
growth characteristics during the two years were found in T1-SSDI and
T1-SDI systems. the analysis results showed that the average estima-
tions of plant height, the number of branches, fresh leaf weight (g),
fresh stem weight (g), fresh plant weight (g), dry leaf weight (g), dry
stem weight (g) and dry plant weight (g) were considerably enhanced
by 24%, 39%, 27%, 15%, 26%, 27%, 25% and 24% when T1-SSDI is
used as compared to T3-SSDI, respectively. Similarly, the increases
within the corresponding vegetative traits in T1-SDI were 27%, 41%,
26%, 15%, 28%, 27%, 27% and 26%, respectively, as compared to T3-
SDI. This is mainly due to (1) the amount of water applied at 100% crop
evapotranspiration sufficiently met the crop water demand, and (2) the
equal distribution of water and nutrients delivered through the SSDI
system.
3.4. Comparison of fruit yield
The average values of the yield traits during 2015 and 2016 were in
order of T1-SSDI, T1-SDI, T2-SSDI, T2-SDI, T3-SSDI and T3-SDI, re-
spectively (Table 3). This can be attributed to the higher amount of
water used within the fully-irrigated plots, on the one hand, and the
lower amount of evaporation losses from SSDI, on the other. The results
obtained from Table 3 show that the average values of the total yields
were significantly decreased by 13.47% and 25.66% for T2-SSDI and
T3-SSDI, respectively, as compared to T1-SSDI. Similarly, the decreases
in total yield from T2-SDI and T3-SDI were 14.23% and 26.13%, re-
spectively, as compared to T1-SDI.
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Agricultural Water Management 209 (2018) 55–61
3.5. Fruit quality characteristics
The tomato crop showed a significant difference in fruit quality
characteristics (fruit length, fruit diameter, dry matter, total soluble
solidity, vitamin C and total acidity) as a result of the various irrigation
treatments (Table 4). Table 4 shows that the maximum values of fruit
quality during 2015 and 2016 were obtained from T1-SSDI and T1-SDI.
In a similar way, T2-SDI and T2-SSDI showed a comparable pattern, but
were of lower quality than T1-SSDI and T1-SDI. This may be due to the
fact that the fully irrigated plots received much more water than the
deficit-irrigated plots. These results are in concurrence with the find-
ings reported by Machado et al. (2003); del Amor and del Amor (2007);
Wang et al. (2010) and Al-Omran et al. (2010).
3.6. Yield reductions and water saving
Table 5 compares the yield reduction and decrease in water use for
the two types of irrigation methods (SDI and SSDI) and three irrigation
procedures (T1, T2 and T3). As can be seen from Table 5, the greatest
reduction in fruit yield (26.13% and 25.6%) was obtained from the
lowest irrigation treatment T3 for both irrigation systems, SDI and
SSDI, respectively. At the same time, the irrigation treatment T3 saved
about 40% of irrigation water. The moderate irrigation treatment T2
saved about 20% of irrigation water and obtained the lowest reduction
in fruit yield (14.23% and 13.4%) for both SDI and SSDI systems, re-
spectively, as compared to T1. These results are in conformity with
those obtained by Ozbahce and Tari (2010) and Djurović et al. (2016).
3.7. Irrigation water use efficiency
Fig. 6 shows the IWUE for the fully and deficit-irrigated treatments.
Clearly, the fully irrigated treatments showed a decrease in IWUE
compared to the deficit-irrigated treatments, which greatly improved
the IWUE in the tomato crop. As shown in Fig. 6, the greatest IWUE was
obtained from T3-SSDI (19.7 kg/m3) and T3-SDI (18.3 kg/m3). Con-
versely, the lowest IWUE (15.9 and 14.8 kg/m3) was found in T1-SSDI
and T1-SDI, respectively. These findings are in congruity with those
obtained by Beuhler (2003) and Simonovic and Li (2003), who sug-
gested that improving IWUE is a basic demand to guarantee the ac-
cessibility of water for both food production and competing human
needs under future climate change.
4. Conclusions
Today, irrigation is the largest single consumer on the earth.
Competition for water from other sectors will force irrigation to operate
under water scarcity. In field crops, a well-designed deficit irrigation
can optimize water productivity over an area when full irrigation is not
possible. Our results have clearly shown that the adoption of modern
irrigation systems combined with deficit irrigation strategies can im-
prove both the irrigation water use efficiency and quality of tomato
fruits. Deficit irrigation will gain more importance over time, but
farmers must choose crops and irrigation strategies carefully to max-
imize the value of their crop while ensuring the sustainability of agri-
culture.
Acknowledgments
With sincere respect and gratitude, we would like to express our
deepest thanks to the Deanship of Scientific Research, King Saud
University, and the Agriculture Research Center, College of Food and
Agriculture Sciences for their financial support, sponsorship, and en-
couragement.
H.M. Al-Ghobari, A.Z. Dewidar
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