A Case Study of Tomato ( Solanum lycopersicon var. Legend ) Production and Water Productivity in Agrivoltaic Systems

Hadi A. AL-agele, Kyle Proctor, Ganti Murthy and Chad Higgins
Additional contact information
Hadi A. AL-agele: Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, College of Agricultural Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Kyle Proctor: Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, College of Agricultural Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Ganti Murthy: Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, College of Agricultural Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA
Chad Higgins: Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering, College of Agricultural Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: The challenge of meeting growing food and energy demand while also mitigating climate change drives the development and adoption of renewable technologies ad approaches. Agrivoltaic systems are an approach that allows for both agricultural and electrical production on the same land area. These systems have the potential to reduced water demand and increase the overall water productivity of certain crops. We observed the microclimate and growth characteristics of Tomato plants ( Solanum lycopersicon var. Legend ) grown within three locations on an Agrivoltaic field (control, interrow, and below panels) and with two different irrigation treatments (full and deficit). Total crop yield was highest in the control fully irrigated areas a, b (88.42 kg/row, 68.13 kg/row), and decreased as shading increased, row full irrigated areas a, b had 53.59 kg/row, 32.76 kg/row, panel full irrigated areas a, b had (33.61 kg/row, 21.64 kg/row). Water productivity in the interrow deficit treatments was 53.98 kg/m 3 greater than the control deficit, and 24.21 kg/m 3 greater than the panel deficit, respectively. These results indicate the potential of Agrivoltaic systems to improve water productivity even for crops that are traditionally considered shade-intolerant.

Keywords: agrivoltaic systems; distribution coefficient; deficit irrigation; full irrigation; solar panel; reference ET; uniformity coefficient; yield; water applied; water productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2850/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2850/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:5:p:2850-:d:511697

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().