IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ajfand/334054.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of biochar from rice husks on evapotranspiration, vegetative growth and fruit yield of greenhouse tomato cultivar anna F1 grown in two soil types

Author

Listed:
  • Masinde, Peter
  • Wahome, Bernard M.

Abstract

Biochar made from crop residues has been shown to improve soil texture, soil porosity and soil structure. It can enhance fertilizer utilization, reduce leaching loses and hence improve nitrogen supply for plant growth. Utilization of biochar in preparation of potting substrates can enhance growth and yields of greenhouse tomato. A study was carried out to test the influence of rice husks biochar on substrate properties, growth and yield of greenhouse tomato. The experiment was carried as a factorial in completely randomized design with two factors: four biochar levels and two soil types, replicated three times. The biochar levels were volume ratios of 0 biochar: 1 soil (0Biochar), 0.25 biochar: 0.75 soil (0.25Biochar), 0.5 biochar: 0.5 soil (0.5Biochar) and 0.75 biochar: 0.25 soil (0.75Biochar). The two soil types used were the well drained deep red friable soil and imperfectly drained dark brown clay soil obtained from the University farm. Tomato Anna F1 was grown in four-liter plastic pots containing about 3 kg of soil-biochar mixture. Data were collected on the plant growth parameters of plant height, number of leaves per plant and plant dry weight upto the 8th - 9th week after transplanting, when fruit ripening began. The chlorophyll index of the leaves were measured using the SPAD meter. At harvesting, fresh weight and number of the fruits were determined. Incorporating biochar into potting substrate at 0.25-0.75 levels significantly increased evapotranspiration during early vegetative growth. This was indicative of biochar changing substrate properties mainly through significant reduction of bulk density and possibly increasing porosity. Biochar levels of 0.25-0.75 resulted in significant increases in vegetative growth and fruit yield of tomato. Adding biochar to the pot substrate increased tomato plant height, plant dry weight and fruit fresh weight by 21-34%, 50-64% and 49%-56%, respectively. The increase in vegetative growth and fruit yield at 0.25-0.75 biochar levels was attributed to the positive effect of biochar on substrate physical properties. Plant height and number of leaves per plant had a significant linear relationship whose slope, the rate of increase in plant height with increase in number of leaves was not influenced by biochar levels. Biochar enhanced growth without changing the ratio of plant height to number of leaves of tomato. It is concluded that incorporation of biochar made from rice husks at 0.25 level can enhance greenhouse production in both red and clay soils.

Suggested Citation

  • Masinde, Peter & Wahome, Bernard M., 2022. "The effect of biochar from rice husks on evapotranspiration, vegetative growth and fruit yield of greenhouse tomato cultivar anna F1 grown in two soil types," African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND), vol. 22(05).
  • Handle: RePEc:ags:ajfand:334054
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/334054/files/Masinde20805.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhang, Chuan & Li, Xinyu & Yan, Haofang & Ullah, Ikram & Zuo, Zhiyu & Li, Lanlan & Yu, Jianjun, 2020. "Effects of irrigation quantity and biochar on soil physical properties, growth characteristics, yield and quality of greenhouse tomato," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang Lei & Lihong Xu & Minggui Wang & Sheng Sun & Yuhua Yang & Chao Xu, 2024. "Effects of Biochar Application on Tomato Yield and Fruit Quality: A Meta-Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Abdelghany, Ahmed Elsayed & Dou, Zhiyao & Alashram, Mohamed G. & Eltohamy, Kamel Mohamed & Elrys, Ahmed S. & Liu, Xiaoqiang & Wu, You & Cheng, Minghui & Fan, Junliang & Zhang, Fucang, 2023. "The joint application of biochar and nitrogen enhances fruit yield, quality and water-nitrogen productivity of water-stressed greenhouse tomato under drip fertigation," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 290(C).
    3. Wang, Xiaodong & Tian, Wei & Zheng, Wende & Shah, Sadiq & Li, Jianshe & Wang, Xiaozhuo & Zhang, Xueyan, 2023. "Quantitative relationships between salty water irrigation and tomato yield, quality, and irrigation water use efficiency: A meta-analysis," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    4. Wu, Zhuqing & Fan, Yaqiong & Qiu, Yuan & Hao, Xinmei & Li, Sien & Kang, Shaozhong, 2022. "Response of yield and quality of greenhouse tomatoes to water and salt stresses and biochar addition in Northwest China," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 270(C).
    5. Zhang, Cong & Huang, Xian & Zhang, Xingwei & Wan, Li & Wang, Zhenhong, 2021. "Effects of biochar application on soil nitrogen and phosphorous leaching loss and oil peony growth," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    6. Maria A. Lilli & Nikolaos V. Paranychianakis & Konstantinos Lionoudakis & Anna Kritikaki & Styliani Voutsadaki & Maria L. Saru & Konstantinos Komnitsas & Nikolaos P. Nikolaidis, 2023. "The Impact of Sewage-Sludge- and Olive-Mill-Waste-Derived Biochar Amendments to Tomato Cultivation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-15, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Crop Production/Industries;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ajfand:334054. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ajfand.net/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.