Simulation of Growth and Development of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) under Drought Stress: 1- Simulation of Soil Water Content, Evapotranspiration, and Green Canopy Cover

Introduction: The modeling approach for the simulation of the growth and development of tomatoes in Iran has been overlooked. Calibrated crop simulation models, therefore, are increasingly being used as an alternative means for the rapid assessment of water-limited crop yield over a wide range of environmental and management conditions. AquaCrop is a multi-crop model that simulates the water-limited yield of herbaceous crop types under different biophysical and management conditions. It requires a relatively small number of explicit and mostly intuitive parameters to be defined compared to other crop models and has been validated and applied successfully for multiple crop types across a wide range of environmental and agronomic settings. This study was conducted as a two-year field experiment with the aim of the simulation of soil water content, evapotranspiration, and green canopy cover of tomato using AquaCrop model under different irrigation regimes at two growth stages in Mashhad climate conditions. Materials and Methods: A field experiment was conducted over two consecutive seasons (2016-2017) in the experimental field of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, located in Khorasan Razavi province, North East of Iran. The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with different irrigation regimes at the vegetative and at the reproductive stage as the main and subplot factors, replicated thrice. In total, 27 plots of 4.5×3 m (13.5 m2) were used at a planting density of 2.7 plants per m2. Seedlings were planted in a zigzag pattern into twin rows, with a distance of 1.5 m between them, so there were four twin rows of three meters in each plot. The distance between tomato plants within each twin-row was 0.5 meters. A buffer zone spacing of 3 and 1.5 m was provided between the main plots and subplots, respectively. The following experimental factors were studied: three irrigation regimes (100= 100% of water requirement, 75= 75% of water requirement, 50= 50% of water requirement) and two crop growth stages (V= vegetative stage and R= Reproductive stage). The drip irrigation method was used for irrigation. The tomato water requirement was calculated using CROPWAT 8.0 software. The irrigation water was supplied based on total gross irrigation and obtained irrigation schedule of CROPWAT. Model accuracy was evaluated using statistical measures, e.g., R2, normalized root means square error (NRMSE), model efficiency (E.F.), and d-Willmott. The 2016 and 2017 measured soil and canopy data sets were used for calibration and validation of the AquaCrop model, respectively. Results and Discussion: For a water-driven model, such as AquaCrop, it is important to evaluate its effectiveness in simulating soil water content. During calibration (2016), the model simulated the soil water content with good accuracy. The simulated soil water content values were close to the observed values during calibration (2016) for all treatments with R2 ranging from 0.90 to 0.97, NRMSE in range of 8.47 to 17.96%, d varying from 0.76 to 0.99, and M.E. ranging from 0.87 to 0.96. Validation results indicated the good performance of the model in simulating soil water content for most of the treatments (0.79<R2<0.99, 10.04%<NRMSE<18.65%, 0.77<ME<0.92). Appropriate parameterization of canopy cover curve is critical for the model to provide accurate estimates of soil evaporation, crop transpiration, biomass, and yield. In general, the calibration results showed good agreement between simulated and observed data for canopy cover development in all treatments with high R2 values (>0.87), good E.F. (>0.61), low estimation errors (RMSE, ranging from only 4.5 to 9.2) and high d values (>0.92). Conclusion: The AquaCrop model (version 6.1) was calibrated and validated for modeling soil water content, evapotranspiration, and green canopy cover for tomatoes under drought stress conditions. In general, soil water content, evapotranspiration, and green canopy cover of tomato were simulated by AquaCrop model with acceptable accuracy in both calibration and validation stages. However, the model performance was more accurate in no and/or moderate stress conditions than in severe water stress environments. In conclusion, the AquaCrop model could be calibrated to simulate the growth and soil water content of tomatoes under temperate conditions reasonably well and become a very useful tool to support the decision on when and how much irrigate. For R2, values > 0.90 were considered very well, while values between 0.70 and 0.90 were considered good. Values between 0.50 and 0.70 were considered moderately well, while values less than 0.50 were considered poor. Root mean square error ranges from 0 to positive infinity and expresses in the units of the studied variable. An RMSE approaching 0 indicates good model performance.