Rice hull-based substrates and the influence of the type of transplant and the age of the plant on the strawberry culture

Abstract

The soilless growing of strawberries using local materials as a substrate is an alternative to reduce costs and reuse waste. The objective of this work was to evaluate the growth and yield of strawberry plants cultivar Aromas, originated from bare root and plug plants, as well as second-year plants in comparison to first-year plants, in substrates formulated with raw rice husk (RRH) and two types of conditioners [carbonized rice husk (CRH) and commercial substrate (S10)]. The experimental factors consisted of four substrates [RRH (100%), RRH + CRH (80 %: 20 %), RRH + S10 (80 %: 20 %), and RRH + CRH + S10 (80 %:10 %:10 %)], two types of transplants (plug plants and bare-root), and the maintenance of second-year plants in comparison to first-year plants. For the first year of growing, regardless of the substrate, plug plants showed greater growth and yield, providing an increase of 62.1 % in the commercial yield of plug plants in relation to the growing of bare-root transplants. As for the growing of bare-root transplants, the addition of CRH and its simultaneous use with commercial substrate S10 as RRH conditioners increased plant growth. However, fruit yield gains were less expressive and clear positive responses for this variable were obtained only with the simultaneous use of CRH and the commercial substrate S10. The results obtained in the second experiment indicate that second-year plants, on mean, showed greater vegetative growth, number and yield of fruits, however, with lower mean weight of fruits than the plants of the first year. First year plants showed superior commercial yield in the RRH + S10 substrate.