Abstract
Inappropriate and excessive irrigation and fertilization have led to the predominant decline of crop yields, and water and fertilizer use efficiency in intensive vegetable production systems in China. For many vegetables, fertigation can be applied daily according to the actual water and nutrient requirement of crops. A greenhouse study was therefore conducted to investigate the effect of daily fertigation on migration of water and salt in soil, and root growth and fruit yield of cucumber. The treatments included conventional interval fertigation, optimal interval fertigation and optimal daily fertigation. Generally, although soil under the treatment optimal interval fertigation received much lower fertilizers than soil under conventional interval fertigation, the treatment optimal interval fertigation did not statistically decrease the economic yield and fruit nutrition quality of cucumber when compare to conventional interval fertigation. In addition, the treatment optimal interval fertigation effectively avoided inorganic nitrogen accumulation in soil and significantly (P<0.05) increased the partial factor productivity of applied nitrogen by 88% and 209% in the early-spring and autumn-winter seasons, respectively, when compared to conventional interval fertigation. Although soils under the treatments optimal interval fertigation and optimal daily fertigation received the same amount of fertilizers, the treatment optimal daily fertigation maintained the relatively stable water, electrical conductivity and mineral nitrogen levels in surface soils, promoted fine root (<1.5 mm diameter) growth of cucumber, and eventually increased cucumber economic yield by 6.2% and 8.3% and partial factor productivity of applied nitrogen by 55% and 75% in the early-spring and autumn-winter seasons, respectively, when compared to the treatment optimal interval fertigation. These results suggested that optimal daily fertigation is a beneficial practice for improving crop yield and the water and fertilizers use efficiency in solar greenhouse.
Highlights
Protected vegetable production systems have been rapidly developed in recent decades in China
The relative soil water content under the treatment optimal daily fertigation (ODF) was higher in the 0–15 cm soil layer than in the 15–30 and 30–45 cm soil layers, suggesting that the soil water was concentrated by the treatment ODF in the 0–15 cm soil layer
The electrical conductivity (EC) values in the 0–15 cm soil layer were higher and more variable than those in the 15–30 and 30–45 cm soil layers, suggesting the salts were concentrated in the 0–15 cm soil layer (Fig. 3)
Summary
Protected vegetable production systems have been rapidly developed in recent decades in China. Redundant water and fertilizers affect environmental protection by nutrient accumulation and soil salinization [4,5,6]. It has become the focus of agricultural field that the efficient water and fertilizer management methods are applied in vegetable production in greenhouse. Mahajan and Singh [8] found that fertigation through reducing rates of water and nitrogen fertilizer promoted fruit yield and quality, and water and fertilizer use efficiencies in greenhouse tomato cultivation system. Both subsurface drip irrigation and alternate furrow irrigation can significantly improve the root growth, and enhance the yield and water and fertilizer use efficiencies [9,10,11,12]
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