Comparison of Yield and Water Productivity in Surface and Subsurface Irrigation in Pots

It’s so important to conducting research on improving productivity and performance due to the reduction of water resources and need for optimal use of water resources, in recent years. One of the suitable methods is potted subsurface irrigation that its effectiveness has been proven in recent researches. Due to less studied the effect of subsurface irrigation in greenhouses, in this study, the productivity of two methods of surface and subsurface irrigation in pots for basil in the greenhouse was compared. Also, two different culture media (soil-cocopeat-perlite and cocopeat-perlite) and two-bed depths in pots (30 and 50 cm) were used. The results showed that there was no significant difference between the two irrigation methods at the level of five percent in wet and dry crop yield. However, the yield values were 25% higher in the soil-cocopeat-perlite bed than the cocopeat-perlite bed. According to the amount of water used, the water productivity increased 13 % in the soil-cocopeat-perlite bed. The results also showed that the water productivity of potted subsurface irrigation and surface irrigation were 10.84 and 5.86 g/l, respectively, which were significantly differ from each other at the level of one percent.