Effect of fertigation using capillary wick irrigation and trickle irrigation in different soil textures on vegetative, reproductive and root growth traits of greenhouse cucumber plant

Abstract This study was conducted to evaluate capillary wick irrigation(CWI) and its effect on the growth traits of the Nagene variety greenhouse cucumber plant compared to trickle irrigation(TI) as a factorial experiment during two growing seasons based on a randomized complete block design (RCBD) in three textures of clay loam (CL) (S1), sand clay loam (SCL) (S2) and sandy loam (SL) (S3) at four levels of fertilizer (0.7 (F1), 0.85 (F2), 1.0 (F3) and 1.15 (F4) times the plant's nutrient requirement with three replications. According to the study results, the interaction effects of irrigation methods at different levels of fertilizer showed that in TI and CWI, for reproductive traits (the number of fruits and total fruit weight) during the average of the two growing seasons (18.66 fruits and 1229.5 g) by TI, F4 was more suitable. But by CWI, traits of the number and weight of the total fruits at F3 (13.42 fruits and 846.3 g) showed a more suitable yield compared to other fertilizer levels of the system. The study results of irrigation method×soil texture interaction showed that by TI, the highest average yield during two seasons in the vegetative and reproductive growth traits and root organs was obtained from S1. In CWI, the study results indicated the superiority of S3 in vegetative and reproductive traits. The study results of fertilizer×Soil×irrigation interaction showed that the maximum fruit weight was 1460.26 g obtained from TI and TS1F4. In WI, the maximum value of this parameter (995.57 g) was obtained from WS3F3.