ISHS Acta Horticulturae 26: III Symposium on Peat in Horticulture
PLANT PROPAGATION IN PEATS HARVESTED BY DIFFERENT METHODS |
| Authors: | M.J. Woods, M. Prasad |
| Abstract:
The use of peat as a propagating medium for a wide range of plant species has become extensive in recent years not only in Ireland, but also in many other countries. The demand for Irish moss peat for use as propagating or growing substrates has increased greatly, largely because of its uniformity, good physical properties and known performance. Since the national resources of this high quality moss peat are limited it was considered timely to examine the potential of more decomposed peats harvested by different methods. Earlier work on Irish peat carried out between 1962 and 1964 by Woods (1966) showed that different peat types used as growing substrates had no effect on tomato yield. In this study the peat types used were moss peat and light, medium and heavy milled peat, which had different degrees of humification. Puustjarvi (1962) and Chroboczek and Karasinska-Dobrzanska (1971) in their studies on peats of different degrees of humification similarly reported little difference in performance between the peat types although Puustjarvi preferred peats with low humification (H1-H3) for short term cultivation. The present experiments were designed to assess the suitability of peat from different sources harvested by three methods as propagating media for a selected range of plant species. | |
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