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The use of steam/air mixtures for partially sterilizing soils infested with cucumber root rot pathogens
Author(s) -
DAWSON J. R.,
KILBY A. A. T.,
EBBEN MARION H.,
LAST F. T.
Publication year - 1967
Publication title -
annals of applied biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1744-7348
pISSN - 0003-4746
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-7348.1967.tb04474.x
Subject(s) - soil water , biology , sterilization (economics) , penetration (warfare) , horticulture , root rot , agronomy , botany , mathematics , ecology , operations research , monetary economics , economics , foreign exchange market , foreign exchange
SUMMARY An apparatus for experimentally heating glasshouse soils in situ with steam/ air mixtures is described. Covering soil with a rigid hood enabled mixtures to be introduced at ground level at pressures sufficient to give reasonable rates of heat penetration. Heat‐treating soils (66–100° C), in which cucumbers had previously grown poorly, increased yields of subsequent crops from (1) 33 to 39/43 kg/plot of four plants and (2) 95 to 178/191 kg/plot. These increases were associated with the eradication of a dark sclerotial pathogenic fungus causing tap root rot. Increasing partial sterilization temperatures increased concentrations of soluble and exchangeable soil Mn from 4 p.p.m. in unheated soil to 9, 43, 87 and 108 p.p.m. at 66, 77, 88 and 100° C respectively, these differences being paralleled by concentrations of Mn in leaf laminae. Cucumbers grown in soils sterilized at 88° C yielded 8 % more than those in soils treated at 100° C.