• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.327-334
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• 2006

In tomato perlite bag culture, the available water content was analyzed for several sorts of perlite so that the irrigation safety was investigated and thus the irrigation strategy controlled by time clock was established. The reduction trends of water content in perlite bags were monitored for tomatoes, of which fruits were harvested until the fifth cluster. The amount of daily reduction of water in the bag was on the decrease as the total water in the bag was decreased. In terms of time interval from when the water content based on weight was reduced more than 50g to when it was dropped again, the longest time interval in a day was retarded gradually. It means plant activity was recovered later than the previous day. The available water content in perlite bag of 40 liters was about 30% which was 12 kg in weight, which satisfied daily water demand of 6 tomato plants. The appropriate time irrigated by time clock was recommended for the case that it was irrigated 5 or 10 times a day with the daily integrated solar radiation of 601 or $1,519W/m^2$.