Abstract:
In order to alleviate the pressure of the peat substrate utilization and the waste and the environmental pollution caused by the coconut fruit shell burned and discarded. A wool powder ‘812’ as a tested material was used to investigate the effects of different compound substrates on tomato seedling growth, leaf physiological activity and photosynthetic characteristics. The best compound substrate formula was screened out through the comprehensive evaluation on the effect of different compound substrates. The results showed that the aeration porosity, air-water ratio, pH, relative chlorophyll content, soluble sugar content, total chlorophyll content, stomatal conductance (
Gs), transpiration rate (
Tr), root vitality,
G value and seedling index with T9 compound substrate formula V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) =3∶2.5∶2.5 were relatively high, with the values of 10.46%, 0.19, 7.59, 46.59, 0.154 mg g
−1, 1.356 mg g
−1, 0.18 mol m
−2 s
−1, 9.59 mmol m
−2 s
−1, 11.44 μg (g h)
−1, 18.67 mg d
−1 and 0.37, respectively. The comprehensive evaluation on the indices of tomato seedlings by the principal component analysis showed that the comprehensive ranking with different compound substrate formulations from high to low was T9 V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 3∶2.5∶2.5 > T8 V (coconut bran)∶V(vermiculite)∶V(perlite) = 4∶3∶1 > T6 V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 5∶2∶1 > T5 V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 5∶1∶2 > T7 V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 4∶1∶3 > T1 V (grass)∶V (coconut chaff)∶V (Vermiculite)∶V(Perlite) = 3∶1∶2∶2 > T4 V (coconut chaff)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (Perlite) = 4∶2∶2 > T2 V (grass)∶V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 2∶2∶2∶2 > T3 V (grass)∶V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 1∶3∶2∶2 > CK V (peat)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 4∶2∶2. These results indicated that the T9 compound substrate formula V (coconut bran)∶V (vermiculite)∶V (perlite) = 3∶2.5∶2.5 could be a suitable plug seedling substrate formula for tomato.