Abstract

The research experiment aimed at estimation of the influence of irrigation and drip fertigation on the specific water consumption (SWC) and evapotranspiration coefficient (ETk) of tomato in Skopje region, Macedonia. Different irrigation and fertigation regimes were applied to the tomato hybrid Optima, grown in an open field. Five different irrigation and fertilization regimes were performed. The first three of them were drip fertigation in every 2, 4 and 6 days, respectively (B1, B2 and B3), the fourth one was drip irrigation with conventional application of fertilizers (Ø1), while the last one was furrow irrigation with conventional application of fertilizers (Ø2). Based on the average values of the SWC, a conclusion is derived that there is no significant difference between the treatments B1 and B2. The treatment В3 indicated 12-15 % higher SWC in comparison with В2 and В1, i.e. around 38 l kg-1 more. This result is considered statistically significant. The control treatment Ø1 induced almost 20% higher SWC in comparison with the treatment of the same irrigation regime but with different fertilizer application schedule (В2). In addition, the effect of the