Biochar addition for enhanced cucumber fruit quality under deficit irrigation

Abstract

In the recent years, biochar has been used as an organic soil amendment. Therefore, this study was undertaken in April 2016 to July 2017 to examine the effect of different biochar addition (BA) rates and deficit irrigation (DI) on quality characteristics of cucumber under greenhouse conditions over two consecutive growing seasons. The BA treatments were B₀ (0-ton ha^-1), B₁ (10-ton ha^-1and B₂ (20-ton ha^-1), while the DI treatments were 1.0 (W₁), 0.60 (W₂) and 0.40 (W₃) of the reference evapotranspiration (ET₀). The results obtained elaborated that the combination of B₂W₁ gave the maximum values of fruit weight (g), fruit water content (%), fruit dry biomass (g) and pH in the both seasons. On the other hand, W₂ and W₃ increased significantly titratable acidity (TA %) and total soluble solid (TSS %). It was possible to conclude that BA with DI might be a novel approach to improve both crop yield and fruit quality.