SOIL TEMPERATURES IN A MEDITERRANEAN GREENHOUSE WITH DIFFERENT SOLARIZATION STRATEGIES

Soil heating has been used for many years to control soil-borne plant pathogens in greenhouse crops.
Plastic mulching of a moistened soil prior to planting, also referred as soil solarization, is a simple, low-cost and non-hazardous soil heating method presently used in many hot countries.
In growing systems with low environmental impact, such as the organic and the integrated greenhouse production systems in the Almería coastal area, soil solarization is now a recommended practice and is widely used.
The effectiveness of this soil desinfestation method, however, mostly depends on solar radiation availability and soil thermal properties.
Soil, air and plastic temperatures were studied throughout the summer of 2009 in a typical gravel-sand mulched soil called “enarenado” under different solarization strategies in Almería, Spain.
The objective was to characterize the thermal conditions which occur during the solarization process at different layers of a gravel-sand mulched soil in a greenhouse with different plastic film covering materials and positions.
Transparent and black polyethylene films were used as mulching material and compared.
In general, the transparent film in close contact with soil surface presented the highest soil temperatures.

XXVIII International Horticultural Congress on Science and Horticulture for People (IHC2010): International Symposium on Greenhouse 2010 and Soilless Cultivation

M.R. Granados, S. Bonachela , J. Hernández, J.C. López, J.J. Magán, E.J. Baeza, J.C. Gázquez , J.J. Pérez-Parra

cover, gravel, mulch, plastic film, sand

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2012.927.93