| Because of its beautiful appearance, rich flavor, delicate meat, high sugar content, long shelf life, etc., muskmelon, also known as honeydew melon, becomes public consumers" favorite choice for high-grade fruit. In recent years, greenhouse cultivation of muskmelon has been rapidly extended in many rural regions and plays an important role in promotion of the adjustment of local agricultural cropping structure and the income of farmers. However, with the rapidly increased area of muskmelon cultivation and pursuit of high yield and high economical efficiency from farmers, mono-varieties is most employed and continuous mono-cropping is not uncommon. This has resulted in heavy problems, e.g., soil salinization, imbalance of soil nutrients and occurrence of soil-borne plant diseases. These problems seriously hinder the development of muskmelon industry. In order to resolve the over-accumulation of phosphorus and potassium in soil of protected cultivation, the present study is based on fertilization and growth medium improvement experiments and aimed to explore the effect of fertilization on the growth of greenhouse muskmelon and the proper ways in nutrient management. It was expected that the results of this study could provide the theory basis for reasonable fertilization and yield enhancement of greenhouse muskmelon from plant nutrition aspects. The main results are listed as follows.Field 3414 fertilization experiment showeds:(1) that the current soil fertility (without application of fertilizers) accounted for 93.4% of muskmelon harvest; (2) that the K, N and P fertilizers accounted for28.3%,14.2%, and 13.2% of muskmelon harvest, respectively, if any one of N, P and K fertilizers was not supplied; and (3) that amounts of 14.88 kg N/667 m2 and 1.9 kg K2O/667 m2 were needed for the muskmelon the highest economical efficiency yield of 2851.6 kg/667 m2 whereas application of P was not needed.Field middle and trace element fertilization experiments showed that foliar application of middle and trace element fertilizers MgSO4, H3BO3 and CaSO4 had significant effect on muskmelon yield. The effectiveness on the yield was in the order of MgSO4> H3BO3> CaSO4. H3BO3 had the greatest effect on reduction of fruit crack rate. With the increase of HBO3 concentration the fruit crack rates were significantly declined Thus, foliar application of HBO3 at certain concentration was effective to prevent the occurrence of crack fruit.Bio-organic fertilizer (trade mark "BIO") amendment experiments showed:(1) that application of 2 kg/m3 of "BIO" in plug trays significantly increased the plant growth vigor, robust seedling index and average daily growth of muskmelon seedlings as compared with control; (2) that application of "BIO" both in plug tray and 15 g/plant in soil effectively enhanced plant growth and resistance of plant to diseases and lessened the occurrence of downy mildew as compared with control; and (3) that "BIO" effectively increased muskmelon yield and economical profit by 11.38% as compared with control.Soilless cultivation experiments showed that the composted organic medium was could improve seedling quality and increased plant leaf area by 23.0% as compared with conventional media. The high-temperature composted organic medium had advantages such as none of soil-borne plant disease pathogens and toxics and was suitable for green food production. |
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