INFLUENCE OF SOIL MULCH AND ROWCOVERS IN THE MICROCLIMATE AND YIELD OF BELL PEPPER AND MUSKMELON

Abstract

The study was conducted too determine the best time of spunbounded polypropylene (Agribon 17) and its response en biomass and both early and total yiels in bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) cv. Yolo wonder and muskmelon (Cucumis melo L. ) cv. Cruiser in two consecuive years (1996-1997). For each species five treatments  were compared in a randomized complete block design with four replications: 1) No mulch, no rowcover, Control, 2) Black plastic mulch (BPM), 3) BPM plus rowcover during 10 days after sowing (das) in muskmelon and 20 days after transplanting (dat) in bell pepper, 4)BPM plus rowcover during 20 das in muskmelon and 30 dat in bell pepper, 5) BPM plus rowcover during 32 dasand 40 dat in muskmelon and bell pepper. Nine degree-days (DD) formulas were used to correlate DD with biomass and both early and total yield. In muskmelon the convectional formula DD, -air was the best correlated with biomass (r= 0-88); the formula DD, -soil, was the best correlated with early and total yield (r= 0.93 and 0.94, respectively). Both early and total yield of bell pepper were correlated with DD-soil in 1997, but not in 1996. The difference in correlations between crops was due to presence of several days over 35°C that caused a reduction of yield in bell pepper. However, BPM plus rowcover increased early and total yield of muskmelon until 47 and 38 t ha^-1 in 1996 and 38 and 29 t ha^-1 in 1997. The highest yield was obtained with 596 DD,-soil in muskmelon.