• Journal of agriculture & life science
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.7-14
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• 2010

Alternative subirrigation way, capillary wick system (CWS) was tested to reduce labor cost, waste water, contamination of ground water, and use of fungicide compared to overhead irrigation system (OIS). CWS helped reduce remarkably the working hours for watering from 4 hours in OSI to just 5 minutes. Labor cost was saved 98% in CWS compared to OIS. By the physical characteristics of various growing media, 1 coconut coir+2 perlite (v/v) mixture was selected because it had an ideal distribution of three phase, e.g. 1 solid: 1 liquid: 2 gas phase. Medium mixture containing scoria had so high bulk and particle density to hurt root. In bark-containing medium, the liquid phase and the percent saturation of liquid phase with time elapsed was lower than that of other mixture. It meant that the mixture contained very low level of water. Application of CWS for cyclamen pot production played an important role in reducing the incident of fusarium wilt symptom from 18% in conventional over watering system to 4%. Cyclamen pot irrigated by capillary wick had shorter petiole and more leaves than those by overhead watering. As a result, this system was highly beneficial to get uniform pot products with high quality. It improved water and nutrient solution efficiency relative to conventional overhead irrigation system (OIS).

• Asian Journal of Turfgrass Science
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2002

The influence of calcium on the growth of creeping bentgrass 'Penn-Al', perennial ryegrass 'Palmer II', Kentuckuy bluegrass 'Nassou' and tall fescue 'Boonsai 2000' in greenhouse was investigated. Creeping bentgrass 'Penn-A1', Kentucky bluegrass 'Nassou' and tall fescue 'Boonsai 2000' at Ca 4.0 me/L, and perennial ryegrass 'Palmer II' at Ca 2.0 me/L showed the best shoot growth. Creeping bentgrass 'Penn-A1', perennial ryegrass 'Palmer II' and Kentucky bluegrass 'Nassou' at Ca 1.0 me/L, and tall fescue 'Boonsai 2000' at Ca 4.0 me/L showed the best root growth, and there was little or no difference between different Ca concentrations. Creeping bentgrass 'Penn-Al' and Kentucky bluegrass 'Nassou' at Ca 4.0 mea, and perennial ryegrass 'Palmer II' at Ca 1.0 me/L had the highest number of tillers, and tall fescue 'Boonsai 2000' at Ca 4.0 me/L had the highest, but there was no difference between different Ca concentrations. As application rate of Ca concentration became higher, the concent of Ca in plant tissue increased, while the content of Mg in plant tissue decreased, and the content of Fe in plant tissue increased to Ca 4.0 me/L. The Ca treatment had not effect on N, p, K, and Zn of tissue content. The wick pot applied will be to research of plant nutrition in future because utilization of wick pot has an excellent precision and convenience.