Effects of different mulching methods on growth,development and physiological characteristics of cucumber in solar greenhouse

The effects of soil surface mulching with different materials including wheat straw,plastic film and wheat straw with plastic film on growth,development and physiological characteristics of grafted and non-grafted cucumber in solar greenhouse were studied.The results show that soil surface mulching not only improves the growth of plants, but also is beneficial to formation and development of the pistillate flower,increases fruit-setting percentage,reduces malformation rate of cucumber,shortens fruit-developing period and enhances single cucumber weight.Moreover,the forepart yield and total yield are both enhanced under the treatments mentioned above.Among which,the effect of wheat straw with plastic film mulching is the best,then wheat straw mulching and plastic film mulching follow.Besides,the net photosynthetic rate,light use efficiency and water use efficiency of leaves increase to some extent under different mulching treatments.And the effects of wheat straw with plastic film mulching exceed the other two treatments,and the effect on grafted cucumber are better than that of non-grafted one.Under the wheat straw and straw with film mulching treatments,chlorophyll content increases,root vitality is enhanced during whole fruiting stage.But if the soil surface is mulched with plastic film,chlorophyll content keeps lower than that of control during whole fruit stage,root vitality at late-fruiting stage becomes more inactive than that of the other two mulching treatments,but still higher than that of control.