Surface temperature of a soilless medium in white, gray, and black plug sheets was measured to determine the value of using plug sheets of different colors to control soil temperature during seed germination and young seedling growth. Plugs sheets were placed in a greenhouse set at 25°C. Soil surface temperatures were measured with fine-wire thermocouples inserted into the top 1 mm of the soil. A thermal image analyzer was used to determine the temperature variation across the plug flat. At night, soil temperature in all three colored flats was 3°C below air temperature because of evaporation and net longwave radiative losses to the greenhouse glass. Surface temperature of moist soil increased as solar radiation increased. Soil surface temperature in the white sheet was 6.3 and 10°C warmer than the air under solar radiation conditions of 350 and 700 W ·m-2 (about 700 and 1400 μmol·m-2·s-1), which was 3 and 2°C cooler than soil the black and gray plug sheets, respectively. These data indicate plug sheet color influences soil surface temperature, but not as much as solar radiation does. Preventing high solar radiation during the summer is more critical than plug sheet color.
In recent years, an estimated 65% of processing tomato acreage has converted from direct seeding to transplanting the crop. Growers have been switching to transplants for a number of reasons, including land use efficiency, water conservation, and weed management. Field studies investigating plant spacing and multiple plants per transplant plug (cell) were initiated when observations by growers indicated that there were seemingly decreased fruit yields from transplanted crops. A transplant density experiment was established in 2004 in a commercial field of processing tomatoes grown on the west side of Fresno County in the San Joaquin Valley, the major tomato production area in California. The field trial investigated in-row spacing (37.5 cm and 75 cm), the number of plants per transplant plug (1, 2, or 3), on a medium vine size variety (Halley 3155) and a large vine size variety (AB2). Individual plots were large enough for mechanical harvest. Yield results indicate that these two varieties responded similarly to increasing plant density. In general, a spacing of 37.5 cm with 2 or 3 plants per plug yielded significantly more than 1 plant per plug, regardless of variety. There was no yield advantage in seeding 3 plants per plug when compared to yields with 2 plants per plug, regardless of variety or in-row plant spacing. A plant spacing of 75 cm with only 1 plant per plug yielded the least.
A study was conducted to develop and demonstrate a practical and accurate method of applying the Pour-Through nutrient extraction procedure to bedding flats and plug trays. The Pour-Through technique involves pouring a known volume of water on previously saturated medium, and collecting the leachate which is pushed out the bottom of the container. The volume of applied water necessary to conduct a bedding flat or plug tray Pour-Through was determined based on leachate pH and conductivity. The sensitivity of the Pour-Through technique when applied to bedding flats and plug trays was determined using varying rates of lime incorporated media and fertilizer. The leachate was analyzed for pH and conductivity. Results indicate that the technique can be used effectively on bedding flats and plug trays.
Medium-surface temperature of black, gray, and white plug sheets was measured with thermocouples and an infrared camera. During the night, there were no medium-surface temperature differences between the plug flats; however, medium-surface temperature was 2 to 3 °C below air temperature. Medium-surface temperature increased as solar radiation (280 to 3000 nm) increased. About 80 W of solar radiation/m2 was incident on the plug-flat surface before medium-surface temperature equaled air temperature. Medium-surface temperature in the black, gray, and white flats was 6.3, 6.1, and 5.3 °C above air temperature, respectively, when 300 W of solar radiation/m2 (30% of the maximum solar radiation during the summer) was incident on the medium surface. Thus, incident solar radiation has a greater effect on medium surface temperature than plug-flat color.
Experiments were conducted to evaluate effects of photoperiod on growth and dry-weight partitioning in Dahlia sp. `Sunny Rose' during both seedling (plug) production and subsequent production in 10-cm pots. Plugs were grown under short days [9-hour natural photosynthetic photon flux (PPF)] or long days (same 9-hour PPF plus a 4-hour night interruption with incandescent light). Total plant dry weight was unaffected by photoperiod; however, long days (LD) inhibited tuberous root development and increased shoot dry weight, fibrous root dry weight, leaf area, shoot length, and number of leaf pairs. Long days reduced plug production time by ≈1 week compared with short days (SD). Following transplanting to 10-cm pots, shoot growth and foliar development were superior under LD. There was no effect of photoperiod on foliar N concentration. The superior growth of LD plugs following transplanting can be attributed to the plant being in a physiological state conducive to shoot expansion instead of storage.
Abstract
Polyurethane foam plugs commonly are used as collars or supports to grow plants in solution culture. Despite their utility, these foam plugs can be quite toxic to plants, particularly to small seedlings. We have observed tissue injury in tests using plugs to support lettuce, red beet, and potato plants in solution culture. Typically, the injury is initiated on the hypocotyl or stem tissue in direct contact with the foam, and appears within 30 hr as a brownish discoloration on the tissue surface. This discoloration can be followed by complete collapse of affected tissue and eventual death of the seedling. When injury does not progress beyond surface browning, the seedling survives but growth is slowed. In this paper, we report on different treatments that can be used to remove the toxicity of these plugs so they can be used in plant research.
Plug production is an integral part of today's floriculture industry. However, if seedlings are held in plug flats for too long, they may not return to a normal growth rate after transplanting. Stunting may render plants unsuitable for sale. Common bedding plant and cut flower species were grown in 288-plug flats to determine how long plugs could be held in the flats and still regain a normal growth rate and desirable growth form after transplanting. Species surveyed included: Antirrhinum, Begonia, Brassica, Callistephus, Celosia, Consolida, Dianthus, Eustoma, Gazania, Helianthus, Impatiens, Lycopersicon, Matthiola, Tagetes, and Viola. Ten randomly selected plugs were transplanted to 15- or 17-cm pots every 1 or 2 weeks for 10 weeks, when root balls were sufficiently developed to hold together after removal from the flat. Overall plant height was recorded for all species every 1 or 2 weeks. Plant diameter was recorded every 2 weeks for Begonia, Celosia, Eustoma, Helianthus, Impatiens, Lycopersicon, and Tagetes. A plug was considered to be stunted if it died after transplanting or did not resume a normal growth rate. Species that exhibited stunting included Brassica, Callistephus, Celosia, Consolida, Dianthus, and Tagetes. For example, Consolida seedlings held in the plug flat for 7 weeks after optimal transplanting time were six times smaller than those that were transplanted at the optimal time. Several factors were investigated to determine how they affected the degree of stunting, including: light quality, root obstruction, nitrogen enrichment prior to transplanting, gibberellic acid addition prior to transplanting, teasing of the root ball prior to transplanting, and length of drainage column.
Pre- and posttransplant growth of plug seedlings is affected by the nutrition of the plants. The effects of weekly applications of nutrient solution with different N (8—32 mM) or P and K (0.25—1.0 mM) levels on the growth and nutrient composition of impatiens (Impatiens wallerana Hook. f.) and petunia (Petunia ×hybrida hort. Vilm.-Andr.) plug seedlings were quantified. Impatiens and petunia pretransplant seedling growth was most rapid with a NO3 - concentration of 24 or 32 mM (N at 336 and 448 mg·L-1), while P and K had little effect. Increasing the N concentration in the fertilizer also increased shoot tissue N levels of both impatiens and petunia and decreased shoot P level of impatiens and K level of petunia. Posttransplant growth was most rapid in plants that received N at 16 to 32 mM. Decreasing P and K from 1 to 0.25 mM in the pretransplant fertilizer reduced posttransplant growth. Shoot P level of impatiens 15 d after transplanting decreased from 6.9 to 4.8 mg·g-1 as the pretransplant fertilizer N concentration increased from 8 to 32 mM, while N level increased from 18 to 28 mg·g-1 as P and K fertilizer concentrations increased from 0.25 to 1 mM. Using posttransplant growth as a quantitative norm for plug quality, the sufficiency ranges for tissue N level are 28 to 40 mg·g-1 for impatiens and 30 to 43 mg·g-1 for petunia plugs. These results indicate that fertilization programs for high-quality plug production should focus on N nutrition, and that plugs can be grown with greatly reduced levels of P and K.
There is a need for a substrate testing method suited for plug plant production. Methods currently used by most growers and analytical labs include the saturated media extract (SME) and the 2 water: 1 substrate (v/v) suspension. These methods are not particularly well-adapted to plug production. The press extraction (PE) method has been developed as a simple and quick alternative to these methods. However, interpretive standards for chemical analysis of plug substrates do not exist for PE. This study was designed to provide the necessary correlations between these methods to allow for development of pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and nutrient interpretive ranges for plugs. Plugs of begonia (Begonia ×semperflorens-hybrida Hort.), impatiens (Impatiens walleriana Hook. f.), marigold (Tagetes erecta L.), petunia (Petunia ×hybrida Hort. Vilm.-Andr.), salvia (Salvia splendens F. Sellow ex Roem. & Schult.), and vinca (Catharanthus roseus L.) were collected from commercial greenhouses and the substrate solution extracted with the PE, SME, and 1:2 methods. Plugs of begonia, celosia (Celosia argentea L. var. cristata (L.) Kuntze Plumosa Group), marigold, petunia, and vinca were grown with three fertilizer rates of 50, 150, and 250 mg·L-1 N. Shoots were harvested 30 days after planting and the solution was extracted from each flat using the three methods. For both experiments, PE EC was equal to or higher than the SME EC, and the pH was equal to or lower than the SME pH. The pH from the 1:2 was also similar to the PE. However, 1:2 EC results were consistently the lowest because of the dilution inherent in the 1:2 method. Interpretation ranges for pH and EC relationships were calculated to compare results from the PE with published sufficiency ranges for the SME and 1:2.
Sweet corn (Zea mays L.) is difficult to transplant due to poor root regeneration. Despite reduced yields, growers are transplanting sweet corn to hasten maturity time to target profitable early markets in the Northeast. Researchers have ascribed the negative impacts on yield to restricted rooting volume. Therefore, the impacts plug cell volume had on sweet corn transplant root architecture and biomass accumulation were investigated. `Temptation' sweet corn was sown in volumes of 15, 19, 14, and 29 mL correlating to transplant plug trays with plug counts of 200, 162, 128, and 72 plugs per tray. Plug cells were exposed to three substrate environments; a dairy manure based organic compost media, a commercial soil-less germination mix, and the soil-less media supplemented 2X with 200 ppm soluble 3-3-3 organic fertilizer. A 4 × 3 factorial randomized complete-block experimental design with two blocks and five replicates per treatment was repeated twice in the greenhouse. For each experiment a total of three center cells were harvested from each replicate for analysis using the WinRhizo Pro root scanning system (Regent Instruments Inc., Montreal). Three cells per treatment were also transplanted into 8-inch pots to stimulate field transplanting. Based on mean separation tests (n = 30), increased cell volume before transplanting significantly increased root surface area, average diameter, and root volume after transplanting (n = 18). Mean root surface area for a 29-mL cell was 30% greater than a 15-mL cell before transplanting and 22% greater after transplanting. Plug cell volume also significantly impacted shoot and root biomass (P <0.0001). A 14-mL increase in cell volume resulted in a root and shoot dry weight increase of about 15%.