Hydroponic Cucumber Production Using Urethane Foam as a Growth Substrate

Abstract

Cucumbers (Cucumis sativus L. 'Loeica') were grown in a specifically designed urethane based recyclable plant growth substrate (UBS) and rockwool (RW) under a recirculating hydroponic production system to: 1) evaluate the performance of UBS in a greenhouse hydroponic production system, and 2) compare the effectiveness of two irrigation schedules on cucumber production using UBS. Plants were fertigated either by schedules 1 or 2. For irrigation schedule 1, plants were fertigated to an extent that 25% leachate was expelled from the RW slabs per day; and for irrigation schedule 2, plants were fertigated at a higher frequency throughout the day at a rate of 1.6 times the volume of schedule 1. Results showed that the UBS seedlings were significantly shorter and one leaf stage behind the RW seedlings during early stages of plant development. This setback in plant growth resulted in delayed flowering and ultimately affected cucumber production. The first USB cucumber fruit harvested was delayed by three days when compared to RW plants. Several weeks after transplanting, plants on UBS did catch up to plants on RW in terms of leaf number and plant height. Eventually, over a 27 day harvest period there was no significant difference in cucumber production or quality between plants on these two growth substrates in terms of fruit length, circumference and total fresh weight. However, irrigation schedule 2 produced significantly more fruits than schedule 1. There was no significant difference in fruit weight per plant between the two substrates under watering schedule 2. The results of this study confirmed that irrigation is extremely important for crop production and that with some design modifications there is potential for the UBS to evolve into a competitive plant growth substrate for greenhouse soilless crop production.

Soilless Cucumber Cultivation under Protective Structures in Relation to Irrigation Coupled Fertigation Management, Economic Viability and Potential Benefits-A Review

“…(2001), the optimal nutrient application to a crop throughout the entire cropping season in relation to changing needs of the plants for nutrients is highly successful due to a greatly improved understanding of plant nutrition and the availability of sophisticated nutrient delivery systems. Huber et al, (2005) cultivated cucumbers in a specially designed urethane based recyclable plant growth substrate (UBS) and rockwool (RW) under a recirculating hydroponic system and confirmed that irrigation was extremely important for crop production with a potential for UBS to evolve as a competitive plant growth substrate for greenhouse soilless crop production with some design modifications. Lee et al, (2005) reported increased plant weight, number of leaves and total yield including marketable yield with increased application of nutrient solution from 0.5 to 2.0 litre plant -1 day -1 obtaining highest fruit yields at 1.5 and 2.0 litre plant -1 day -1 of fertigation level.…”

“…It has become progressively more important worldwide during last fifty years (Schmilewski 2009). In recent past, numerous researchers cultivated cucumbers in soilless media under different greenhouse conditions (Huber et al, 2005;Gul et al, 2006;Gul et al, 2007;Janapriya et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2012;Mazahreh et al, 2015). Subjected to optimal operating microclimatic conditions for greenhouse cucumber cultivation in soilless media (Singh et al, 2017b), desired yield potential of cucumber can be achieved.…”

“…The cucumber cultivation in soilless system has significantly increased during last couple of decades (Gul et al, 1999;Lorenzo et al, 1999;Tuzel et al, 1999;Huber et al, 2005;Al-Mulla et al, 2008;Janapriya et al, 2010;Zhang et al, 2012;Mazahreh et al, 2015) than soil based cultivation due to occurrence of soil borne diseases. Hickman and Klonsky (1993) reported a yield of 33.0 kg m -2 for cucumber cultivated in bag culture inside a greenhouse.…”

Overview of a Lab-scale Pilot Plant for Studying Baby Leaf Vegetables Grown in Soilless Culture

“…Sometimes, detailed information is hardly given in a manuscript that allows for replications by other authors, maybe due to the shortening of pages requested by journal publishers and editors. In a few articles detailed indications are given on the technical preparation and management of an experiment in SCS (Karam and Al-Daood, 2005;Marfà et al, 2005;Rouphael et al, 2005), but little information is available about the description of the experimental sizing (Frezza et al, 2005;Huber et al, 2005;Sato, 2005;Thompson et al, 1998). Only a few authors such as López-Galarza et al (2005) report indication about the suppliers, and some articles have details of the system also with the graphic scheme (Bar-Yosef et al, 2005;Karam and Al-Daood, 2005;Marfà et al, 2005).…”

Productivity Enhancement of Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) through Optimized Use of Poultry Manure and Mineral Fertilizers under Greenhouse Cultivation

“…Numerous nations have extensively adopted it during the last five decades to sustain their crop production efficiently [22,23]. Several research reports have been published regarding cucumber cultivation in soilless media under greenhouse conditions [24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. The current climate change situation has accelerated interest in and choice of this approach, mainly due to environmental pollution, water shortage, abrupt changes in the surrounding environment, etc.…”