as effective as drip irrigation in supplying water to tomato

plants. Plastic mulch sheds most of the irrigation from sprinklers

and movement of water from the middles to plants is not very

efficient. Rainfall would be less than 25% efficient if runoff

occurred. Estimated total water use (98 days) for drip irrigated

tomatoes was 13 inches based on rainfall being 25% as effective as

drip irrigation. Average daily irrigation use with sprinklers was

0.23 inches/day between 19 March and 2 May and 0.53 inches/day

between 2 May and 29 June. Drip irrigation used 0.03 inches/day

between 19 March and 2 May and 0.17 inches/day between 2 May and 24

June. Estimated drip irrigation use in Exp-1 for 120 days is 14.2

inches. Maximum daily irrigation was 1.0 inch for sprinklers and

0.23 inches for drip.

 Accumulative Irrigation Use (Inches)
 40
 Irrigation System
 -1 Sprinkler
 80 -ES Manual Drip
 E Automatic Drip

 20


 10-



 Mr-19 Ap-lO My-2 My-20 Jn-7 Jn-24
 Date (Month-Day)

Figure 2. Accumulative irrigation use by treatments in exp. #1.