Preliminary comparative study of pumice and perlite in cucumber substrate culture

Abstract

The study was conducted in the Agriculture Center of Macedonia and Thrace farm, North Thessaloniki, Greece. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of different mixture of particle sizes of pumice on growth and yield of cucumber cv. "Kamarron" under plastic greenhouse condition to determine the suitable mixture as a growing medium for cucumber. The pumice mixtures tested were 80:20, 70:30, 60:40 and 50:50 (v/v) ratio (particle sizes 0-5 mm and 5-8 mm) respectively comparing with perlite to improve the airspace and easily available water as well as total porosity and water buffering capacity. The results showed that increasing the percentage of pumice 5 - 8 mm led to decrease the bulk density, easily available water and water buffering capacity, on the other hand increased the pore space volume % and air space volume %. There were no significant differences were obtained among the treatments regarding number of leaves, stem diameter, plant height, total leaves area, early and total yield and number of fruit per plant.