Modeling the effect of biodegradable paper and plastic mulch on soil moisture dynamics

Sağlam, Mehmet; Sintim, Henry Y.; Bary, Andy I.; Miles, Carol A.; Ghimire, Shuresh; Inglis, D. A.; Flury, Markus

doi:10.1016/j.agwat.2017.08.011

Cited by 96 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…But earlier in the season in 2017, when the irrigation rate was based on soil moisture levels in the PE mulch treatment alone, plants in other treatments were moisture stressed, as demonstrated by their reduced plant vigor, yield, and ear quality. Due to its low permeability, PE mulch likely conserved more moisture in the soil so that it was available for plant uptake, whereas plastic BDMs have higher permeability and so water was evaporated from those plots and not available for plant uptake (Saglam et al, 2017). Adequate soil moisture in the PE mulch treatment may have improved mineralization of plant available nutrients, thereby leading to increased nutrient uptake and resulting in improved crop performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xu et al (2015) reported greater soil moisture conservation leading to higher plant height of grain corn grown with clear plastic mulch compared with bare ground. Saglam et al (2017) reported increased soil moisture conservation under black PE mulch and BDMs compared with paper mulch and bare ground when pumpkin was drip irrigated and rainfall was sparse. Costa et al (2014) also reported equal soil moisture conservation with the use of PE mulch and BDM with strawberry.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil-biodegradable Mulches for Growth, Yield, and Quality of Sweet Corn in a Mediterranean-type Climate

Ghimire¹,

Scheenstra²,

Miles³

2020

horts

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Plastic mulch is commonly used to produce many vegetable crops because of its potential to decrease days to harvest, control weeds, and improve soil moisture conservation. However, use of plastic mulch is relatively new for sweet corn (Zea mays L.) in North America. We compared five plastic soil-biodegradable mulches [BDMs; Bio360, Organix AG, Clear Organix AG, Naturecycle, and Experimental polylactic acid/polyhydroxyalkanoates (Metabolix, Inc., Cambridge, MA)] and a paper mulch (WeedGuardPlus) against standard black polyethylene (PE; nonbiodegradable) mulch and bare ground cultivation for growth, yield, and quality of sweet corn cultivar Xtra Tender 2171. This field experiment was carried out in Mount Vernon, WA, which has a Mediterranean-type climate with an average air temperature of 16.1 °C during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons. The experiment was drip irrigated; and in both years, preemergence herbicides were applied to the entire experimental area 1 to 2 days after seeding, and post-emergence herbicides were applied to alleys. While most mulches remained intact until the end of the growing season, Clear Organix AG started to split shortly after laying, resulting in significant weed pressure by midseason in both 2017 and 2018. Plant height toward the end of the season was lowest for plants grown on bare ground, intermediate for Clear Organix AG and WeedGuardPlus, and highest for the black plastic BDM and PE mulch treatments both years, except for Bio360 in 2018 where plant height was intermediate. Days to 50% tasseling and 50% silking were delayed 9 and 13 days, respectively, for bare ground and WeedGuardPlus compared with all other treatments in both years. Marketable ear yield was highest with the black plastic BDMs and PE mulch and lowest with bare ground, WeedGuardPlus, and Clear Organix AG treatments in both years. Total soluble solid content of kernels, and length and diameter of ears grown on the plastic BDM and PE mulch treatments were equal to or greater than, but never lower than, bare ground and WeedGuardPlus. These results indicate that growth, yield, and quality of sweet corn grown with black plastic BDMs are comparable to PE mulch, making black plastic BDMs an effective alternative to black PE mulch for sweet corn production in a Mediterranean-type climate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil-biodegradable Mulches for Growth, Yield, and Quality of Sweet Corn in a Mediterranean-type Climate

Ghimire¹,

Scheenstra²,

Miles³

2020

horts

Self Cite

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“…Nevertheless, in this study we only aimed at representing partial plastic mulching with PE material and following the common plastic-bare strip pattern as widely available on the Loess Plateau and in the Northeast of China. However, new plastic mulching patterns, such as two ridges and furrow plastic mulching (Zhou et al, 2009), as well as new biodegradable materials (Saglam et al, 2017;Kasirajan and Ngouajio, 2012) are currently being developed. Especially for plastic mulching with biodegradable materials, some extra processes should be taken into account, since these plastics decompose faster and present cracks changing the infiltration processes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling soil water dynamic in rain-fed spring maize field with plastic mulching

Chen

Liu

Mei

et al. 2018

Agricultural Water Management

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a b s t r a c tNumerical solution of the Richards equation with Hydrus-2D model is a low cost and fast way to get information on spatio-temporal soil water dynamics. Previous researches with Hydrus-2D have developed two different approaches to represent the rainfall infiltration in irrigated field with plastic mulching: 'BP' -an approach comprised by bare strip boundary and plastic strip boundary without consideration of film side infiltration;'BP + '-an approach comprised by bare strip and plastic strip with integrating the process of film side infiltration by increasing the rainfall infiltration amount in bare strip. Nevertheless, the performance of these approaches has not yet been evaluated in rain-fed fields. Considering much more dominant role of rainfall infiltration in rain-fed agriculture, we tested an additional approach which comprised a bare strip, plastic strip and planting hole (BPH) to take into account the effect of the rainfall canopy redistribution and film side infiltration, and we compared its performance to the two existing approaches. Results suggested BP completely failed to reproduce the soil water content (SWC) in all soil layers of plastic strip and in the deep soil layers of bare strip. BP+ overestimated the SWC in 0-20 cm of the bare strip, while the performance of BPH was acceptable in different positions. After that, we compared the soil water distribution between no-mulched field (NM) and plastic mulched field (PM) with approach BPH. Our simulation showed that the highest SWC in PM occurred near the planting hole, SWC in the center zone of plastic strip was lower, while SWC in the bare strip was lowest. PM improves the soil water availability not only in the plastic strip but also in the bare strip as compared to NM.

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“…Moisture retention is an extremely valuable benefit of plastic mulch. Water conservation in the soil zone under plastic is due to the reduced evaporation of water and vapour flow in the soil-atmosphere interface (Saglam et al 2017). Since plastic is less permeable, stronger, and less degradable than other naturally sourced materials used for mulching, such as straw or compost, water flow across the soilatmosphere interface is very low, which greatly improves moisture retention in the soil.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthetic Mulches in Organic Hardneck Garlic (Allium sativum subsp. ophioscorodon) Production

Carr¹,

Congreves²

2020

USURJ

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The demand for certified organic garlic (Allium sativum) in Canada is increasing; however, garlic can be challenging to produce organically, as it does not compete well with weeds, requires relatively fertile soils, and is grown in a biennial cropping system. Synthetic mulches have been adopted in organic production as they can be an economical method to improve vegetable production by reducing weed pressure and modifying soil conditions. We hypothesize that garlic quality and overall yield will be improved when using synthetic mulches. In 2017-18, we conducted a randomized complete block design experiment to compare garlic production of black plastic, white plastic, and Kraft paper mulch treatments to a control with no mulch at a certified organic farm in Krestova, British Columbia. We evaluated garlic characteristics associated with yield and quality, changes in soil nutrition, and weed control of the mulch treatments. We found that plastic mulches had the best weed control, and all synthetic mulches increased minimum and maximum bulb diameter, clove count, and yield compared to the control. Mulching materials did not influence soil nitrate concentrations. The results support the hypothesis that synthetic mulches increase the quality and yield of the garlic compared to the control. Our findings suggest that synthetic mulching may be a key component of improving garlic production systems.

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Modeling the effect of biodegradable paper and plastic mulch on soil moisture dynamics

Cited by 96 publications

References 32 publications

Soil-biodegradable Mulches for Growth, Yield, and Quality of Sweet Corn in a Mediterranean-type Climate

Soil-biodegradable Mulches for Growth, Yield, and Quality of Sweet Corn in a Mediterranean-type Climate

Modelling soil water dynamic in rain-fed spring maize field with plastic mulching

Synthetic Mulches in Organic Hardneck Garlic (Allium sativum subsp. ophioscorodon) Production

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