Course Plan
Step 1 - Start right
Step 2 - Get proper ventilation
Step 3 - Irrigate better
Step 4 - The necessity of dehumidifying
A mature tomato plant needs 2 ml/joule/cm²/day/m², which is too complicated to remember.
The important thing is to remember that 90% of the water needs come from transpiration. And that is mostly driven by the sun and the number of leaves.
The peak in water demand is in June, during sunny days. With the standardized irrigation set-up, this represents 45 minutes of irrigation per day. We’ll use this peak demand to illustrate how to adapt our irrigation to cloud coverage and the number of leaves.
The amount of water needed is linked to the amount of sunlight. When it’s cloudy, you should irrigation less.
Tracking the exact solar radiation is overkill. We used to give people 3 cloud coverage scenarios to configure irrigation in Orisha. Then, every morning, they would choose the right scenario by looking at the forecast. With the new program, everything changes automatically without you doing anything.
You can reproduce the same on your setup using these rules of thumb :
☀️ Sun = 100% = 45 min
⛅️ Partly Sunny = 66% = 30 min
☁️ Cloudy = 33% = 15 min
Another determining factor of how much water plants need is their maturity. A mature beef tomato plant has 18 leaves.
Consider plants at various growth stages that get the same sunlight.
🌿 Plant A : 18 leaves = 100% = 45 min
🌱 Plant B : 9 leaves = 50% = 23 min
In tip #6, there's a calculator. It shows the correct water volume based on the month, cloud coverage, and leaf count.