Corn cobs as growing media for production of cucumber plants in agriculture sector: a new trend

Abstract

Peat and perlite are considered traditional growing substrates in soilless culture. The high cost of both and the urgent need for agricultural waste recycling prompted scientists and soilless culture growers to find alternative growing substrates provide optimal growth conditions and help dispose waste safely. In this study, corn cobs (CB) were tested as growing media and compared with peat moss (PM) and perlite (P). The organic wastes tested: CB, PM, and P were examined with washed sand (WS) at five treatments (WS, CB, CB + peat, CB + P and CB + sand). Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) plants were cultivated using 5 kg pots that contained the investigated substrates. Vegetative growth parameters, early fruiting stage, photosynthetic pigments, and cucumber yield had the highest values with CB and CB + P substrates, while the lowest ones were found in WS and CB + WS. CB resulted in greater flowering with the number of fruits per plant and yield being 39.70%, 37.33%, and 33.67%, 29.88 in both seasons, higher than the lowest substrate (WS). Although adding P to CB showed the highest values of measured growth characteristics, its high cost decreased net profit. Furthermore, CB characteristics as a growing media qualify it for use in cucumber soilless culture production. The use of this replacement media, which contains crushed CB, could reduce (but not eliminate) the need for PM and P in soilless culture. Also, using pyrolyzed biomass in growing media provides another way to convert biomass residues into valuable products.