TOMATO AND CUCUMBER IN SOILLESS CULTURE

The soilless culture of protected vegetables is now available on various substrates (peat, rockwool, …) and also in hydroponic system.
The CTIFL station in Carquefou carries out experimentations on tomato and cucumber grown with this technique since several years.
This paper gives the results of the two last years.

For tomato growing, it appears that nutrient film technique and rockwool give the best results in comparison with mixtures of expanded clay and peat or expanded clay and rockwood, the soil being always the last.
For cucumber growing, the culture with rockwool gives better results than those with soil.

The success of this technique for the growers depends on :

• the choice of substrate, the suitable equipment for making the nutrient solution and its distribution to plants,

• the quality of necessary controls and the possibility to adjust it quite to plants requirements.

Symposium on Substrates in Horticulture other than Soils In Situ

M. Letard

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1982.126.33