Soilless greenhouse cultivation: growth and yield of ginger in response to the pot size and culture media

Abstract

The increasing shortage of arable land and adverse weather conditions have caused a significant part of crops, especially medicinal plants, to be cultivated through soilless cultivation methods. In this research, the soilless greenhouse cultivation of ginger was studied. The experiment was laid out in a 2 × 3 factorial scheme based on a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Treatments consisted of two different sizes of pots (10 l and 20 l), and three types of culture media, including sand, perlite, and an equal (1:1) mixture of sand and perlite. Based on the results, except for leaf area and rhizome sodium content, the interaction effect was significant for most of the traits. The highest rhizome dry mass (58.13 ± 2.05), rhizome dry material content (43.68 ± 1.19), were recorded in larger pots containing the mixture medium. There were positive and significant correlations between leaf area and some of important traits such as rhizome dry mass (0.48) and rhizome dry matter content (0.58). The results of this research confirmed that by taking into account the most suitable pot size and cultivation medium (i.e. 20 l pot and mixed culture medium), the maximum yield of rhizome fresh mass can be obtained up to 133.5 ± 7.94 g.

Keywords

• culture medium
• perlite
• sand