Formation Of Warm Soil In The Greenhouse

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read part 1. Disinfection of greenhouses for the new season

Formation of warm soil on manure

Pumpkins planted in a mini-greenhouse

develop much faster

In the classic version, warming up the soil provides manure, preferably horse manure, since it generates more heat, but cow manure can also be used. It should be brought in shortly before the start of spring work in the greenhouse.

But this is not really for everyone, since manure has to be ordered, and it is difficult to deliver the cargo to the place in spring when there is an abundance of snow. You can stock it up in advance in the fall.

The second option assumes the following - in the second half of summer you need to bring fresh manure, carefully dry it, spread it in a thin layer, then stack it very tightly, cover it with straw or hay on top, and then with roofing material to protect it from precipitation. There are two important points to keep in mind. Firstly, when the manure is dried in air, the proportion of nitrogen decreases markedly, and this will need to be compensated for in the spring by adding a certain amount of urea to the soil. Secondly, if the laying is not dense enough, the manure will flare up prematurely - as a result, all your efforts will go to waste, since it will no longer be possible to warm up the soil in the spring.

If fresh manure was brought in in the spring, about a week before the start of work, then it will be unfrozen, and inside the heap and generally hot. Such manure is immediately placed in greenhouses and greenhouses in prepared areas. Manure stored in a pile is warmed up in the spring a week before being placed in a greenhouse by throwing it with a pitchfork into a high loose heap and periodically pouring water (preferably hot). This will lead to the fact that, after a few days, self-heating of biofuel will begin, and it will be possible to start applying it with the lower layer to greenhouse ridges. Unfortunately, this option for heating the manure piled up in the previous season in the northern regions, to which I include our Middle Urals, is problematic, since at the time of the start of work in the greenhouse the manure is completely frozen. This significantly complicates the process, although there are options for heating.

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You can, for example, install a temporary stove on the street, overlay it with clods of frozen manure and flood it. Manure warmed up near the stoves is buried in several places in piles that have not yet begun to self-heat, to create hot spots in them. You can also place stones on a fire in stacks.

The heated manure is placed on the ridges in the bottom layer. In the case of partial soil removal before this operation, the soil remaining on the ridges is preliminarily thrown into heaps (it is better if this operation was carried out in the fall) - the earth from these heaps will then go to form the upper layer of the ridges. If you wish, you can fill the lowest layer of the ridges with a variety of organic residues in the fall (straw, mown or weeded grass, kitchen waste, leaves, tops from plants harvested in autumn, etc.), and apply manure in the next tier. Of course, the tops of plants with signs of any disease cannot be used in this "greenhouse cake". The total layer of such complex organic matter together with manure should reach about 30 cm.

Manure on the ridges is not brought in pure form, but with mandatory mixing with chopped straw, hay, leaves or chopped reeds (this is especially true in relation to cow manure) and with active humidification - the optimal humidity for heating is 65-70%, but not higher … Without such mixing and humidification, manure will burn worse. The stacked manure is sprinkled with lime at the rate of 300 g per 1 m ², which will prevent the massive appearance of fungi, and if the manure is quite fresh, also fresh sawdust, which will take away excess nitrogen that could accumulate in the form of nitrates. On top of this mixture, the stored soil is laid on which crops will be grown.

The soil layer must be large enough (at least 20 cm) - otherwise the roots of the plants will be able to reach the layer with manure before it decomposes, which can lead to burns of the root system. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the ingress of the smallest fragments of manure into the upper soil layer is fraught with outbreaks of diseases, primarily black leg and root rot. Therefore, the formation of ridges requires accuracy and care. In general, the manure used as biofuel in greenhouse ridges decomposes very quickly - after 1.5-2 months from the moment the greenhouse was launched, it will already be half-rotted.

The best results in terms of warming up the soil are achieved by mixing horse manure with straw in a 1: 1 ratio. In this case, the manure heats up very quickly, reaching 70 ° C in a week after filling the ridges, in another week its temperature drops to 20 … 30 ° C, and from that moment you can start sowing and planting.

Formation of warm soil on straw

It is important to make the most of the

available light space

Straw has very good physical properties and, when used as a biofuel, it allows to obtain large yields of vegetable crops (including early production) with a higher, according to the conclusions of a number of specialists, content of dry matter, vitamin C and sugars in vegetables than on conventional soils. In addition, plants on warm straw beds do not get sick, because, unlike manure, straw is usually free of pathogens. However, straw should be taken from fields not treated with herbicides. It is best to use straw of rye, wheat, or a mixture of both.

Unfortunately, warm straw soil has its drawbacks. The main disadvantage is the need to apply a very large amount of mineral fertilizers required to decompose the straw. In addition, there are some agrotechnical difficulties when growing crops on a straw substrate: more frequent and abundant watering of crops is required during the growing season, because straw has a very weak moisture capacity, and more frequent (once every 7-10 days) feeding plants with solutions of nitrogen and potassium fertilizers. In addition, during decomposition, the straw settles more than other prefabricated greenhouse soils with organic components, which means that more soil for mulching and a weaker garter of plants will be required to avoid pulling them out when the soil subsides (otherwise damage to the root system cannot be avoided).

Straw is applied in a layer of 30-35 cm (you can immediately in bales), which on average corresponds to 10-12 kg per 1 m ² - directly on the ground or on a plastic wrap that completely covers the bottom and sides of the greenhouse trenches. Then the bales are strongly moistened (preferably with hot water) for 3-5 days until the entire thickness of the ridge is completely wetted. After that, mineral fertilizers are introduced into the swollen straw in 2-3 doses per 100 kg of dry straw 1400 g of ammonium nitrate, 1300 g of potassium nitrate, 1700 g of superphosphate, 200 g of magnesium sulfate, 300 g of iron sulfate and 500 g of lime (lime is introduced last but not least). When laying straw on a plastic wrap, the rate of applied fertilizers (except for lime) is reduced by 1.5-2 times.

All fertilizers, with the exception of superphosphate and lime, are applied in liquid form, while fertilizers or water (after sprinkling with superphosphate or lime) are poured in a weak stream from a watering can, carefully introducing into straw bales.

After the introduction of fertilizers and water, the temperature in the straw substrate quickly rises and after 2-3 days reaches 40 … 50 ° C (sometimes even higher). After about 10 days, it drops to 30 … 35 ° C - after that, the prepared soil is poured over the straw with a layer of at least 10-15 cm and sowing and planting begins.

Thanks to good air exchange in the root zone and the release of additional amount of carbon dioxide during the decomposition of straw, this technology allows you to get no less yields than when using more traditional biofuel in the form of manure. In addition, financially manure is much more expensive, and its use when refueling heifers requires a lot of labor from gardeners.

Formation of "prefabricated" warm soil

Alas, not all gardeners have the opportunity to purchase manure or straw to form a full-fledged warm soil - road manure, and straw (with the current desolation of agriculture) can not be obtained in any region. In this case, you can build prefabricated warm soil - that is, soil from a variety of organic materials that are actually available.

Leaves, sawdust, bark, hay, reeds, river and lake silt, peat, household organic waste, meat and fish meal, algae, branches, brooms, etc. can be used as such materials. All these materials are harvested in the fall and always in dry (well, or relatively dry, if we are talking, for example, about silt). They are loaded into greenhouse trenches either in late autumn, if the materials are dry enough and already frozen, or in spring.

There are a couple of important guidelines to follow when laying organic materials. The first - the largest and longest decaying components (branches, spruce branches, brooms, reeds) are always placed on the bottom layer of the formed soil and compacted. Second, all other components are laid loosely and in thin layers, which alternate sequentially in order to achieve maximum mixing of the components. You can, of course, just afterwards mix the layers with a pitchfork, but this is physically quite difficult. When laying organic matter, remember that branches, brooms, sawdust and other “woody” components require higher doses of nitrogen fertilizers. Leaves (here, in fact, everything depends on the tree species) can lead to acidification of the soil, which means that it will be necessary to sprinkle them with lime. River and lake silt usually has an alkaline reaction,therefore, it is introduced in small quantities and only in combination with acidifying components, for example, leaves.

If the filling of greenhouse beds is carried out in the fall, then it is imperative to protect the biofuel from premature combustion. That is why all organic materials are laid dry in late autumn and the laid layers are never watered. Then the greenhouses are left open for complete freezing of the soil.

In spring, greenhouse ridges (not yet fully formed) are covered with transparent plastic wrap to speed up thawing of the upper layer, and the greenhouses themselves are closed. When the soil components in the greenhouse more or less thaw, the folded organic matter is loosened with a pitchfork and poured abundantly from a watering can with hot water with dissolved nitrogen fertilizer (for 10 liters of water, 1 tbsp. If in the fall not all of the stored organic materials were placed in the greenhouse, then a bunch of them, if necessary, is heated in one way or another, and then the organic matter is placed in the trenches and plentifully watered with hot water and fertilizers. After that, the ridges are again covered with foil for several days to start the heating process. Then the prepared soil is poured over the prefabricated soil with a layer of at least 10-15 cm and sowing and planting is started.