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Projects

Introducing Date Palm Waste as potential local soilless culture substrate in comparison to Rockwool, Coco-peat and Perlite - Tomato

Status: Finished

Year: 2020

Project type Introducing Date Palm Waste as potential local soilless culture substrate in comparison to Rockwool, Coco-peat and Perlite - Tomato

Background

Rockwool is one of the most commercially used substrates in soilless cultivation that usually imported, with high cost. Furthermore, Rockwool is an inorganic material that has no proper waste processing by the end of the growing season.

So, there is an arrogant need to look for alternative cheap/locally material that could be used as growing substrates. Date Palm Waste is low cost and locally available substrate in a large quantity since Date production is a big industry in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this project investigates the effect of mixing date palm waste with perlite in comparison with the single substrate (Date Palm Waste, Perlite, Rockwool and Coco-peat) on tomato growth and yield in comparison with commercial soilless substrates

Experiment History

Six growing media treatments were used:

Date Palm Waste 25 mm (100%).
Date Palm Waste 25 mm + Perlite (50/50) % (V/V)
Date Palm Waste 25 mm + Perlite (75/25) % (V/V)
Perlite (100%)
Rockwool
Coco-Peat (100%)

Planting date	24-Feb-2020
First Harvest	29-Apr-2020
Until	29-Nov-2020
Harvesting Period [d]	215
Harvesting Period [wk]	31
Number of Harvests	50

Goals

Comparing the potential of using locally available date palm waste with other commercial soilless substrates

Testing different mixture rates of date palm waste with perlite

Effect of different substrates on tomato crop yield

The main factors studied are:

Date Palm Waste 25 mm (100%).
Date Palm Waste 25 mm + perlite (50/50) % (V/V)
Date Palm Waste 25 mm + perlite (75/25) % (V/V)
Perlite (100%)
Rockwool
Coco-peat (100%)

Result overview

Date Palm Waste material is a good alternative cheap/local soilless substrate that resulted equal tomato yield in comparison to rockwool and perlite

Date Palm Waste resulted in equal tomato yield in comparison to Rockwool and perlite
Mixing Date palm waste with different perlite ratios did not affect tomato yield

Mixing Date Palm Waste with different perlite ratios did not affect tomato yield

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