Regulatory and economic incentives to improve water and fertilizer use efficiency have prompted the nursery industry to seek new and advanced techniques for managing the production of ornamental crops. The development of best management practices, especially with regard to fertilizer and irrigation management, is largely based on research that looks at season-long trends in water and nutrient use. Understanding how water moves through a substrate during a single irrigation event may allow for the refinement of recommended best management practices that improve water and fertilizer use efficiency in container-grown plant production systems. Therefore, a study was conducted to characterize the movement of irrigation water at three growth stages [4, 9, and 17 weeks after transplanting (WAT)] throughout the production cycle of Ilex crenata Thunb. ‘Bennett’s Compactum’ that were container-grown in a bark-based substrate alongside fallow (i.e., without a plant) containers. Tensiometers were placed at three horizontal insertion depths and three vertical heights throughout the substrate profile to detect changes in matric potential (ψ; kPa), during individual irrigations. At 4 WAT, the pre-irrigation ψ in the upper substrate profile was 12.3 times more negative (i.e., drier) than the substrate near the container’s base and 6.0 times more negative than the middle of the container. This gradient was decreased at 9 and 17 WAT as roots grew into the lower portion of the substrate profile. On average, water began to drain from the base of containers 59.9 s ± 1.0 se and 35.7 s ± 1.3 se after irrigation commencement for fallow containers and plant-containing treatments, respectively, indicating channeling through the substrate of plant-containing treatments. A pattern of plant water uptake by roots induced a gradient in the substrate’s pre-irrigation moisture distribution, where portions of the substrate profile were relatively dry where plant roots had taken up water. Consequently, the application of water or fertilizer (i.e., fertigation) through irrigation has the potential to be highly inefficient if applied under dry substrate conditions where channeling may occur. Therefore, water application using cyclic irrigation or substrate moisture content (MC) thresholds (not letting MC fall below an undetermined threshold where channeling may occur) may improve water application efficiency. Furthermore, fertigation should occur when the substrate MC in the upper portion of the container is higher than the pre-irrigation MCs observed in this study to minimize the occurrence of channeling. The effect of root growth should also be taken into account when seeking the proper balance between pre-irrigation substrate MC and irrigation application rate to reduce the risk of unwanted channeling.
Water Movement through a Pine-bark Substrate during Irrigation
