[Effects of nutrition medium on cucumber growth and soil microenvironment in greenhouse under continuous cropping]

An experiment of continuous cropping of cucumber in nutrition medium (composted with straw, rural soil and puffed chicken manure) or soil was conducted in greenhouse in order to study the effects of medium type on the cucumber growth and soil microenvironment, respectively. The results showed that the two treatments both displayed different levels of obstacles resulted from continuous cropping. In the same cropping season, the nutrient content, soil invertase and urease activities and B/F (bacteria/fungi) ratio in the nutrition medium were obviously higher but fungi quantity was lower than in the soil medium, suggesting the use of nutrition medium changed the bacterial population structure as to improve the cucumber growth and yield. Under continuous cropping, correlation analysis showed that the bacterial quantity was significantly positively related with plant height and root dry mass, and markedly significantly positive correlation exited between the aboveground dry mass and yield of cucumber. The urease activity was also significantly positively related with the cucumber yield. Compared with the soil medium, the nutrition medium could greatly improve soil microenvironment and alleviate the continuous cropping obstacle.