Improving Nutrient Use Efficiency in Facility Production of Cucumber by Regulating Drip Irrigation Amount

Abstract

【Background】 Optimizing irrigation amount can save water and fertilizer use without compromising crop yield, especially for facility agriculture where long-term application of fertilizers often results in nutrient accumulation and enhance gas emission due to the lack of natural leaching of the nutrients. However, there is limited study on how changes in drip irrigation amount and timing affect nutrient distribution and its uptake by crops. The aim of this paper is to plug this gap. 【Method】 We take facility production of cucumber in Sichuan province as an example and used the variety of Chuancui 13 as the model crop. There were five irrigation treatments which were to control the volumetric soil water content at: 25%～30% (T1), 35%～40% (T2), 45%～50% (T3), 55%～60% (T4) and 65%～70% (T5) of the field capacity, respectively. The cucumbers in all treatment were watered with mulched drip irrigation by plastic film; in each treatment, we measured the content of nitrate, available phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), as well as the cucumber yield. 【Result】 Increasing drip irrigation amount resulted in nitrate and available P and K to move downward to the subsoil, but it increased cucumber yield, with the yield of T5 being 55.60% higher than that of T1. The T4 treatment had the highest nutrient accumulation in the fruits, and compared with T1, it increased the accumulation of N, P2O5 and K2O in soil by 58.23%, 46.53% and 48.25% respectively, and their associated uptake rate from the soil by the cucumber by 30.95%, 7.74% and 57.62%, respectively. 【Conclusion】 For facility production of cucumber we investigated in Sichuan province, the optimal drip irrigation amount was 3 288.60 m3/hm2. Rationally increasing the irrigation amount can boost nutrient uptake by the crop and improved fertilizers use efficiency, thereby reducing their losses from leaching and/or emissions.

Keywords

• drip irrigation amount
• soil nutrients
• cucumber
• yield
• nutrient uptake