Effects Of Mulching On Soil Environment, Tomato Fruit Yield And Quality

Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.), a annual or perennial herb belonging to subgenus Solanum of Solanaceae, originated from South Ameica. Tomato is a kind of fruit with rich nutrition and also one of the most widely cultivated vegetables. As its rich nutrition and high value therapeutic care, tomato welcomed by consumers. Mulching is a crop cultivation and management technique with long history, currently in China the mulching materials such as straw and film are widely used in agriculture production. Studying the characteristics and differences between straw and film, which is beneficial to ameliorate the soil ecological environment in greenhouse, improve the yield and quality of crop.In this study, two tomato varieties ’Zhongyan 988’ and ’Fenbei 3’were grown in a plastic greenhouse. We focus on the effect of mulching on soil environment and tomato plant growth, fruit yield and quality todetermine the optimal mulch approach. The main results are as follows:1. To investigate the effect of mulching methods on soil environment yield and quality of tomato, no mulching as control, four treatments including plastic film mulching, straw mulching, straw mulching on plastic film mulching, plastic film mulching on straw mulching were conducted in this study. The results showed that mulching increased moisture content of the soil surface. Meanwhile, straw mulching reduced the soil surface temperature, while plastic film mulching and plastic film/straw mulching improved soil surface temperature; with the soil depth, soil available nutrient content under different treatments were decreased, under the film/straw mulching the soil surface organic matter was significantly higher than the control and other treatments; soil pH value of control was lowest(pH=6.04), Ec value of film was highest(Ec=1.37ms/cm); with different treatment, the respiratory intensity of surface soil from high to low is film/straw mulching>straw/film mulching>straw mulching>plastic film mulching>control, at the beginning of flowering, flowering and fruiting period the soil urease, invertase and phosphatase activities under film/straw covering were the highest. Yield of tomato fruit was the highest and quality of tomato fruit was best under film/straw covering. In conclusion, the mulch can improve the soil ecological environment, advance the yield and quality of tomato fruit. By contrast, the optimal ground mulch is film/straw.2. No mulching as control, four treatments including plastic film mulching, straw mulching, straw mulching on plastic film mulching, plastic film mulching on straw mulching were conducted to investigate the effect of mulching on growth, the yield and quality of tomato. The results showed that plant height was higher under plastic film mulching treatment than others, under plastic film mulching on straw mulching treatment, stem diameter was thicker than others; total leaf chlorophyll content, net photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance and intercellular CO2 concentration in film/straw mulching treatment was the best; root activity in film/straw mulching treatment was the best, the follow was straw mulching; under film/straw mulching treatment, the yield of tomato fruit and nutritional quality was the best. In conclusion, the mulch can promote the growth and photosynthesis of tomato plant, improve the yield and quality of tomato fruit. The optimal mulching approach is film/straw mulching as compared with other ways in this experiment.3. Straw mulch with the amount of 0,0.4,0.8 and 1.2 kg/m2 was placed on field to investigate the effects of different straw mulch amount on tomato plant growth, fruit yield and quality. The results indicated that with the straw mulching, stem diameter was significantly thicker than control, with the amount of 0.8kg/m2 was optimal in this experiment. Different straw amount could not improve the height. Under the treatment of 0.8 and 1.2kg/m2 straw mulching, total leaf chlorophyll content, photosynthetic capacity and root activity were increased. Meanwhile, the yield of tomato fruit and nutritional quality was the optimal. In conclusion, the straw mulching can promote the growth and photosynthesis of tomato plants, improve the yield and quality of tomato fruit. Considering the effect and factors, the optimal amount of straw mulching was 0.8kg/m2.