Effects of irrigation quantity and biochar on soil physical properties, growth characteristics, yield and quality of greenhouse tomato

doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106263

Agricultural Water Management

Volume 241, 1 November 2020, 106263

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2020.106263 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Biochar application reduced soil bulk density, increased soil porosity and improved soil 3-phase composition.
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The interaction between Irrigation quantity and biochar has no obvious effect on the soil solid phase.
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The application of biochar can improve the yield and quality of tomato under full irrigation and severe water deficit.

Abstract

Considering the challenges faced by current agricultural industry, such as less cultivable land, lack of soil nutrient value, limited water resources, low yield and fruit quality (Appearance and nutritional values). Biochar application was found effective way to improve soil physical properties, consequently, yield and quality of tomatoes. Biochar at three levels: B0 (0 ton/ha), B1 (25 tons/ha) and B2 (50 tons/ha) with three levels of drip irrigation quantity: full irrigation T1 (1.4 pan evaporation Ep), moderate water deficit T2 (1.2 Ep) and severe water deficit T3 (1.0 Ep) were applied in greenhouse. Thus, nine treatments, i.e. T1B0, T1B1, T1B2, T2B0, T2B1, T2B2, T3B0, T3B1 and T3B2 were set. The effects of applied different levels of irrigation quantity and biochar on soil physical properties, crop growth, yield and fruit quality were observed. Increasing level of applied irrigation quantity and biochar could improve the physical properties of soil effectively: decreased, increased and varied the soil bulk density, porosity and 3-phase composition of soil respectively. It is found that increasing levels of applied irrigation quantity at B2 had good effects on bulk density, porosity and 3-phase proportion of soil, and best composition of 3-phase (solid and pores: liquid + gas were 33.68 % and 66.32 % respectively) at T2B2 was found. The growth rate, considering growth parameters: plant height and stem diameter, was increased by applying adequate level of irrigation quantity and biochar. The yield was found maximum at T1B2, which was increased by 30.92 % as compared to T1B0. For T3 level, biochar application increased tomato yield, as compared to B₀ by 83.69 % and 176.60 % at B1 and B2 respectively. It is concluded that application of biochar under full and severe deficit irrigation level increased tomato yield effectively, but tomato growth could inhibit under moderate water deficit irrigation, caused a slight yield reduction.

Introduction

Food production for increasing global population with high quality, using water for crop efficiently, is a major challenge for modern agriculture (Acquah et al., 2018; Gong et al., 2019; Nevenka et al., 2016). Modern agriculture based on precision agriculture: designed agricultural systems such as greenhouse, which plays a vital role to improve crop water use efficiency and ecological functions (Gong et al., 2017; Li et al., 2011). The area of various greenhouse has been increased up to 2.1 million hectares in China since 2017, the growth rate of simple plastic greenhouses to automated greenhouses with 3,800 ha is also fast (Ullah et al., 2017).

Tomato is one of the most widely cultivated vegetables in the world as well as in China. China has become largest producer and consumer of tomato, with 1.0117 million hectares cultivated area, in the world (Huo, 2016; Liu, 2015). Biochar and inorganic fertilizer are main sources to improve soil fertility and crop yield under deficit irrigation (Faloye et al., 2019). Biochar is recognized as a green, safe, cheap, efficient and effective source to improve soil health and is going to become an integral part of modern agriculture.

The demand of biochar has been increased by scientific community due to its several soil health benefits. Biochar’s physical characteristics (extremely porous nature) is found to be effective at soil systems directly or indirectly, by improving soil water retention, retaining both water and nutrients, consequently, increasing water use efficiency (Ali et al., 2015; Faloye et al., 2019; Lehmann et al., 2008; Woolf et al., 2010). Biochar application has significant and positive effects on physical properties (Bulk volume, surface area, pore size distribution, particle size distribution, texture, structure, porosity, soil bulk density, and soil fertility) of soil (Muhammad et al., 2019; Giorgio et al., 2019; Gul et al., 2015; Jin et al., 2019). Different soils have their own unique physical characteristics, dependent on the nature of minerals and organic materials, their relative amounts and formation process (Brady and Weil, 2002). It is claimed that soil bulk density of the tillage layer decreased significantly by biochar application for three years and gradually decreased to biochar increasing levels (Laird et al., 2010).

The presence of biochar in soil impact directly on soil physical characteristics and significant response to soil water retention, which make soil environment feasible for soil preparation, expansion-shrinkage kinetics, high permeability, ability to retain cations and controlled soil temperature. Therefore, biochar plays catalystic role to improve the soil health, water use efficiency and fertilizer utilization (Downie et al., 2009; Munoo et al., 2018). In addition, biochar in soil also increased cation exchange capacity, nutrient cycling, adsorption phytonutrients, ability to retain available water to plants and reduced nutrient leaching. Thus, the nutrient and available water is used by plants efficiently, consequently, the response of crop growth and yield is significant (Cheng et al., 2008; Glaser et al., 2001; Liang et al., 2006). Akhtar et al. (2014) reported that application of biochar in sandy loam soil under deficient irrigation increased the yield and quality of potted tomato. Several studies showed that good fruit quality was attained by applying biochar with managed deficit irrigation (Chen et al., 2013, Chen et al., 2014), and tomato fruits were found to be sweeter and less acidic (Ripoll et al., 2016). Applying 1/3 to 2/3 of full irrigation with biochar during flowering, fruit development and maturity stages increased total soluble solids significantly, reduced sugar, and vitamin C content, fruit firmness, sugar to acid ratio and fruit color index are found different (Chen et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2019). Research conducted by numerous scientist related to biochar application for the improvement of soil-water relation and increment of crop production have achieved some oriented objectives, therefore, gap of knowledge will be filled to investigate the effect of application of biochar and water at different level on growth and physiological characteristics of greenhouse crops.

In order to investigate the effect of irrigation and biochar application on soil physical properties, crop growth characteristics, yield and fruit quality. Research is conducted to determine the impact of different application of biochar and irrigation levels on the soil physical properties, and to evaluate the combined effect of biochar and water levels on growth response, yield and quality of greenhouse tomato. The results of this study are the guideline for growers, agronomist and policy makers to improve soil health, increase tomato yield and quality, consequently, for the development of economic by providing biochar agriculture facility and promoting sustainable agricultural.

Section snippets

Site, experiments and cropping details

The experiment was conducted in the Greenhouse of the Key Laboratory of Modern Agricultural Equipment and Technology, Ministry of Education, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China (119°45′ E, 32°20′ N). The soil of experimental site was predominant clay loam with low percentage of organic matter. The physical and chemical properties of soil are shown in Table 1 (B. Ali et al., 2018).

The experiment was conducted from March 2, 2018 to July 16, 2018. The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) seeds, Hezuo

Soil physical properties

The effects of different biochar and irrigation treatments on the soil bulk density at two different growing stages (seedling and mature picking) are shown in Fig. 2. The soil bulk density showed different trends at B0, B1 and B2 levels with respective to irrigation treatments T1, T2 and T3 in seedling stage as well as in mature picking stage. It is found that increasing biochar level within the individual irrigation treatments T1, T2 and T3, bulk density showed decreasing trend. The lowest

Conclusion

In this study, 9 sets of treatments were designed under 3 irrigation quantity and 3 biochar application to investigate the effects of irrigation quantity and biochar application on the soil physical properties, plant growth parameters, fruit yield and quality of tomato in a greenhouse.

Application of irrigation quantity had no significant effect on soil physical properties: soil bulk density and porosity in a short period of time. However, increasing biochar application could significantly

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest and do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted.

Acknowledgements

This study has been financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (51609103); Synergistic Innovation Center of Jiangsu Modern Agricultural Equipment and Technology (4091600002); Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Project of Jiangsu Province (CX(18)1007). We greatly appreciate the careful and precise reviews by the anonymous reviewers and editors.

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Effects of irrigation quantity and biochar on soil physical properties, growth characteristics, yield and quality of greenhouse tomato

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Site, experiments and cropping details

Soil physical properties

Conclusion

Declaration of Competing Interest

Acknowledgements

Application and evaluation of Stanghellini model in the determination of crop evapotranspiration in a naturally ventilated greenhouse

Int. J. Agric. Biol. Eng.

Influence of biochar amendment on soil water characteristics and crop growth enhancement under salinity stress

Int. J. Eng.

Effects of deficit irrigation and biochar addition on the growth, yield, and quality of tomato

Sci. Hortic.

Biochar enhances yield and quality of tomato under reduced irrigation

Agric. Water Manage.

Mitigating yield-scaled greenhouse gas emissions through combined application of soil amendments: a comparative study between temperate and subtropical rice paddy soils

Sci. Total Environ.

Effect of biochar on soil properties, soil loss, and cocoyam yield on a tropical Sandy loam alfisol

Transfus. Apher. Sci.

Enhancement of depleted loam soil as well as cucumber productivity utilizing biochar under water stress

Commun. Soil Sci. Plant Anal.

The nature and properties of soils

J. Range Manage.

Quantitative response of greenhouse tomato yield and quality to water deficit at different growth stages

Agric. Water Manage.

Modeling relations of tomato yield and fruit quality with water deficit at different growth stages under greenhouse condition

Agric. Water Manage.

The effects of aeration and irrigation regimes on soil CO2 and N2O emissions in a greenhouse tomato production system

J. Agric. Sci.

Natural oxidation of black carbon in soils: changes in molecular form and surface charge along a climosequence

Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta

Physical properties of biochar

Effects of biochar and inorganic fertiliser applications on growth, yield and water use efficiency of maize under deficit irrigation

Agric. Water Manage

Experiment on substrate cultivation of cherry tomatoes in sunlight greenhouse with drip irrigation

Journal of Drainage and Irrigation Machinery Engineering.

Effect of biochar on the physical and structural properties of a sandy soil

Catena

The Terra Preta phenomenon: a model for sustainable agriculture in the humid tropics

Naturwissenschaften

A proposed surface resistance model for the Penman-Monteith formula to estimate evapotranspiration in a solar greenhouse

J. Arid Land

Comparison of Shuttleworth-Wallace model and dual crop coefficient method for estimating evapotranspiration of tomato cultivated in a solar greenhouse

Agric. Water Manage.

Physico-chemical properties and microbial responses in biochar-amended soils: mechanisms and future directions

Agric. Ecosyst. Environ.

The effects of aeration and irrigation regimes on soil CO₂ and N₂O emissions in a greenhouse tomato production system