Water-saving techniques for growing horticultural seedlings in a pediculture

Relevance. To obtain high-quality planting material in West Siberia, it is impossible to create a favorable soil moisture regime without irrigation. Drip irrigation combined with mulching is an advanced technology that reduces water consumption and dampens acute fluctuations of moisture content and temperature in the upper soil layers. The research goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of moisture conservation when using various mulching and covering materials during completing of growing orchard crop seedlings in a nursery.

Materials and Methods. The research was carried out in 2025 at the site of the Experimental Production Division of the Federal Altai Scientific Center of Agro-Biotechnologies, in the Department of the Lisavenko Siberian Research Institute of Gardening, in the forest-steppe zone of the Altai Region. The experiments on completing of growing seedlings of honeysuckle (Berel variety) and sea buckthorn (Zhemchuzhnita variety) in the nursery included the following variants: control; 3-4 cm thick straw layer; 3-4 cm thick sawdust layer; black spunbond; white spunbond. The number of registration plants in one plot was 30 (450 plants in the experiment). The soils of the experimental site were meadow-chernozem soils; the moisture content was maintained at a level of 70% of the minimum field moisture capacity and above. The studies were carried out according generally accepted methods for determination and evaluation of the water-physical soil properties.

Results. Organic mulching materials (straw and sawdust) as well as black spunbond turned out to be the most effective in terms of moisture conservation. In the one-meter soil layer of the nursery for growing sea buckthorn and honeysuckle seedlings against the background of drip irrigation, the average increase in total moisture storage per season was as following: 20.8-30.1 mm under black spunbond; 18.6-28.5 mm when mulching with straw; 17.7-22.3 mm in the sawdust variant; 8.2-23.9 mm when using white spunbond.

In the upper fifty-centimeter root layer of drip irrigation plots used for growing orchard seedlings in a nursery, mulching with straw creates additional productive moisture storage of 11.6-13.3 mm, sawdust - 8.8-13.3 mm, black spunbond - 5.3-11.8 mm, and white spunbond - 3.8-10.0 mm.

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