Abstract

Closed cycle soilless techniques can be adopted to minimize water and fertilizer losses in greenhousecultivation. There is a general lack of information regarding the soilless cultivation of vegetables withclosed cycle subirrigation techniques, specifically when using saline water. In this study, a trough benchsubirrigation system (SUB), with two fertilizer concentrations (''100%'', containing 9.8 mol m3 N-NO3,1.6 mol m3 P-H2PO4, 8.7 mol m3 K+, 2.8 mol m3 Ca+, 1.8 mol m3 Mg+, 4 mol m3 S-SO4, and ''70%'',containing 70% of the macronutrient concentration) in the nutrient solution (NS), was compared withopen cycle drip-irrigation (DRIP with ''100%'' NS). For all the three treatments, NS was prepared usingrain water (0.05 dS m1) and adding NaCl (1 g L1), in order to simulate moderate saline irrigation water.The effect of the treatments on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) plant growth, yield, fruit quality, wateruse efficiency (WUE) and fertilizer consumption was evaluated. Substrate and recirculating NScomposition were also studied. Subirrigation, regardless of NS concentration, reduced plant height (by30 cm), leaf area (by 1411 cm2), total fresh and dry weight (by 429 and 48.5 g plant1, respectively) butnot dry matter percentage of the whole plant, with respect to DRIP. Yield was reduced when plants weresubirrigated with the higher concentrated NS, but no differences with open cycle DRIP were recordedwhen the lower NS concentration was used in SUB. Fruit quality was not affected by irrigation system orNS concentration. The higher WUE was obtained with subirrigation. NaCl accumulated similarly over thecrop cycle in recirculating NS of both SUB treatments and in growing substrates of all the threetreatments. Higher salt concentration was found in subirrigated substrates, in particular in the upperpart of the substrate profile. Fertilizers accumulated in the subirrigated substrates when the higher NSconcentration was used, but not when the NS concentration was reduced by 30%. The results of this studyindicate that tomato can be grown successfully in a closed cycle subirrigation system, using saline water,by reducing the fertilizer NS concentration normally used with traditional open cycle systems.

Autore Pugliese

• Parente Angelo , Montesano Francesco Fabiano

Tutti gli autori

• Montesano F.; Parente A.; Santamaria P.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Scientia horticulturae

Anno di pubblicazione

2010

ISSN

0304-4238

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Numero di citazioni Scopus

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Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

Non Disponibile