Abstract            Volume:11  Issue-3  Year-2023         Original Research Articles

Online ISSN : 2347 - 3215 Issues : 12 per year Publisher : Excellent Publishers Email : editorijcret@gmail.com

Water has been identified as one of the scarcest inputs, which can severely restrict agricultural production and productivity unless it is carefully conserved and managed. This study has investigated the effects of Mulching and Amount of Water on yield and yield components of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under Drip irrigation at Adola rede District, Southern Ethiopia. The treatments of the study comprised different combinations of three drip irrigation levels (100, 75, and 50% of crop water requirement, ETc) and three mulches (No mulch, white polyethylene sheet, and wheat straw). The yield and yield components in the mulched treatments with high levels of irrigation were significantly higher compared to those in the unmulched treatments. The yield of tomatoes increased with the increasing amount of irrigation water in mulched treatments. The highest marketable fruit yield for each mulch (35478kg ha^-1 for white mulch and 28831kgha^-1 for straw mulch) was obtained when 75% of the crop water requirement was applied. With 100% water application, the white plastic mulched treatment produced a lower marketable fruit yield than the straw-mulched treatment. The highest water productivity of (12.915kg m^-3) was obtained with 75% water application under white plastic mulch, But statistically non-significant with straw mulch under 75% crop water requirement application. The highest net benefit of 563475.7ETB ha-1 was recorded from white plastic mulch with 75% ETc and followed by 484454.7ETB ha^-1 with Straw mulch with 75% ETc. The lowest net benefit 285477.3ETB ha^-1 was obtained from no mulch with 50% ETc. The highest benefit to cost ratio was obtained under treatment straw mulch with 75% ETc (15.04) and followed by no mulch with 100% ETc (14.32). This result revealed that wheat straw mulch with 75% ETc is economically feasible for tomato production in the Adola area of the Guji zone.

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