Abstract
Since plug seedling plays a key role in automatic transplanting, this work aimed to explore the effect biochar has on the root growth of plug seedlings. The physicochemical properties tests showed that the addition of biochar in the peats could increase the porosity, pH, and EC values of the substrate, and the substrates treated with 0%, 10%, 20%, and 30% biochar could meet the requirements of seedling raising. The water retention of the substrate was superior with the increase of biochar proportion, and the nitrogen release significantly decreased with the increase of the biochar proportion. Our results demonstrated that the substrate with 10% biochar-treated apparently promoted the growth of seedlings and root systems, even the length of the root-tip cells. However, the substrates with 40% and 50% biochar-treated obviously inhibited the growth of seedlings and root systems. It was noticed that the strength of substrate with appropriate biochar proportion was enhanced, as well. Under the interaction of strong root system and solid substrate, the compressive strength of the substrate with 20% and 10% biochar-treated was much better than others, especially that of 40% and 50% biochar-treated, which efficiently satisfied the requirements of automatic seedling picking. The biochar may have a good application prospect in seedling raising.
Highlights
Seedling transplanting technology can extend the growth period of crops and significantly increase the yield, and about half of the cash crops use this technology [1]
Previous research showed that larger porosity would retain more air and water in the substrate, which could benefit the growth of root system [11]
On the basis of seedling raised by substrate with peats, we attempted to find out the effect of the biochar added in peats on the growth of seedlings by testing the properties of the substrates, growth status of the seedlings, parameters of root systems, and compressive strength of the substrates
Summary
Seedling transplanting technology can extend the growth period of crops and significantly increase the yield, and about half of the cash crops use this technology [1]. The automatic pick-up device has developed rapidly in order to cooperate with seedling transplanting technology to achieve higher economic benefits. Most of the pick-up devices are still in the experimental stage because the mechanical characteristic of the seedling is difficult to meet the requirements of automatic seedling picking [2,3,4]. The success ratio of seedling picking is low and the seedling substrate is damaged during the seedling picking process if the mechanical characteristic of the seedling is not good, especially when picking at a high speed, so it is important to cultivate the seedlings with good mechanical properties which can meet the requirements of the high-speed picking [5,6]. In order to Agronomy 2020, 10, 1080; doi:10.3390/agronomy10081080 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomy
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