Many arid and semiarid regions of the world face serious water shortages that are projected to have significant adverse impacts on irrigated agriculture and create unprecedented challenges for providing food and water security for the rapidly growing human population in a changing global climate. Consequently, there is a momentous incentive to shift to more resource-efficient soilless greenhouse production systems. Though there is considerable empirical and theoretical research devoted to specific issues related to control and management of soilless culture systems, a comprehensive approach that quantitatively considers relevant physicochemical processes within containerized soilless growth modules is missing. An important first step towards development of advanced soilless culture management strategies is a comprehensive characterization of hydraulic and physicochemical substrate properties. In this study we applied state-of-the-art measurement techniques to characterize six soilless substrates and substrate mixtures [i.e., coconut coir, perlite, volcanic tuff, perlite/coconut coir (50/50 vol.-%), tuff/coconut coir (70/30 vol.-%), and Growstone^®/coconut coir (50/50 vol.-%)] that are used in commercial production in Israel and the United States. The measured substrate properties include water retention characteristics, saturated hydraulic conductivity, packing and particle densities, as well as phosphorus and ammonium adsorption isotherms. In addition, integral water availability and integral energy parameters were calculated to compare investigated substrates and provide valuable information for irrigation and fertigation management.

中文翻译：

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有机和矿物无土栽培基质和混合物的理化和水力学性质的表征

世界上许多干旱和半干旱地区都面临严重的水资源短缺，预计这将对灌溉农业产生重大不利影响，并在不断变化的全球气候中为为快速增长的人口提供粮食和水安全带来前所未有的挑战。因此，有很大的动机要转向使用资源更有效的无土温室生产系统。尽管有大量的经验和理论研究致力于与无土栽培系统的控制和管理有关的特定问题，但是缺少一种综合方法来定量考虑容器化无土栽培模块中的相关理化过程。发展高级无土栽培管理策略的重要第一步是对水硬性和物化性基质特性的全面表征。在这项研究中，我们应用了最先进的测量技术来表征六种无土基质和基质混合物[即椰子椰壳，珍珠岩，火山凝灰岩，珍珠岩/椰子椰壳（50/50体积％），凝灰岩/椰子椰壳（70/30体积百分比）和生长石^® /椰子椰壳（50/50 vol .-％）]在以色列和美国用于商业生产。测得的基材性能包括保水性能，饱和导水率，堆积和颗粒密度，以及磷和铵的吸附等温线。此外，还计算了整体可用水量和整体能量参数，以比较调查的基质并为灌溉和施肥管理提供有价值的信息。