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Growth regularities and dry organic biomass accumulation rates in drip-irrigated tomato under different soil watering thresholds
 
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1
Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation of NAAS
 
2
Institute of Ecohygiene and Toxicology of Pesticides and Agrochemicals of the State Enterprise “L.I. Medved’s Research Center of Preventive Toxicology, Food and Chemical Safety, of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine”
 
3
National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine
 
These authors had equal contribution to this work
 
 
Corresponding author
Pavlo Volodymyrovych Lykhovyd   

Institute of Water Problems and Land Reclamation of NAAS
 
 
 
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ABSTRACT
This study establishes the regularities of dry organic matter accumulation throughout the growth period of drip-irrigated tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.), cultivated in the cold semi-arid climate zone (BSk), under various watering thresholds using a logistic function. The proposed mathematical models highly conformed to the empirical data, yielding strong coefficients of determination (R2 of 0.98). Growth parameter modeling demonstrated that maintaining a soil moisture threshold in the layer 0-50 cm of at least 70% field capacity (FC) from seedlings planting to budding, followed by 80% FC during peak growth intensity, optimizes biomass accumulation dynamics. The absolute highest dry organic matter accumulation rate (0.623 t ha-1 day-1) was recorded at the critical curve inflection point (T2) under a dynamic 70–80–70% FC irrigation regime. Peak growth acceleration (0.024 t ha-1 day-2) occurred at critical point T1. The intensive growth phase terminated upon reaching critical point T3, transitioning into a deceleration phase characterized by negative acceleration values, which temporally coincided with intensive fruit formation. The duration of this intensive growth window varied from 13.2 to 19.1 days depending on moisture availability. Ultimately, maintaining soil moisture below 70% FC or exceeding 80% FC is agronomically impractical because these moisture extremes significantly depress both growth rate and acceleration, reducing overall crop productivity.
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