

The Study on Tomato with Different Planting Patterns in Coastal

Saline-Alkali Land

Songgan Weng

, Jun Wang, Yihong Wang, Wang Wu and Xinyuan Zhang

Jiangsu Hydraulic Research Institute, 97 Nanhu Road, Nanjing 210017, China

Keywords: Coastal saline-alkali land, Greenhouse, Planting patterns, Ridge planting, Root-limiter

Abstract: In this paper, the plants’ height, yield of tomato and soil surface conductivity were studied under drip

irrigation conditions in greenhouses, with three planting patterns: root-limiter planting, ridge planting

without film, and ridge planting with film-mulching. The result showed that the planting pattern had a

significant impact on the height and yield of tomato. Comparing to the ridge with non-film planting，the

plants of ridge with film-mulching were 6.5 cm taller. The average yield per plant with root-limiter was

1018.0g, and the ridge without film was 650.0g barely. The root-limiter was better than the ridge-planting as

a whole. Compared with the soil surface conductivity before planting, the root-limiter, ridge with

film-mulching, as well as ridge without film increased the conductivity of the soil by 2.0%, 5.2%, and

22.0%, respectively. In summary, ridge with film-mulching could achieve higher yields with the use of drip

irrigation for greenhouses with mild salinization. Root-limiter with off-soil could maximize the overall

benefits for greenhouses with more severe salinization.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2122-8576

1 INTRODUCTION

Saline-alkali land is widely distributed in China, and

it has weak environmental carrying capacity. These

factors limit the sustainable development of

economic, social, and ecological environment. At the

same time, saline-alkaline soil is an important

reserve resource of arable land in China.

Saline-alkaline soil management and agricultural

utilization play an important role in ensuring the

absolute safety of rations, maintaining the stability of

existing arable land, and adhering to the safety

bottom line of basic food self-sufficiency (Liu et al.,

2021; Liu, 2021).

In recent years, facility agriculture has been

greatly developed, among which facility vegetables

represented by greenhouses have developed the

fastest (Qiao & Wang, 2021;

Gao & Lu, 2021;

Zhang, 2011). However, it has brought increasingly

serious soil problems with the long-term relatively

closed production environment. The soil salinization

has become most apparent with the using of

greenhouses. It was mainly composed of coastal

saline soil, tidal saline soil, and fluvo-aquic soil in

coastal saline-alkali land.

With the high groundwater level and high salt

content, it has led to the salinization of greenhouse

soil, and appeared massive, quick and harmful. Some

greenhouses have been invalid and unsuited to

planting only 1 to 2 years (Lu et al., 2009). There

was little effect to inhibition the raise of the

groundwater level and salt-accumulation, with the

traditional fresh-water irrigation (Li & Wang, 2007).

Therefore, the appropriate planting method was of

great significance to alleviate the salinization of

greenhouses planting areas in the coastal area.

The drip irrigation has the characteristics of high

frequency, small flow and long time, among many

planting methods. It could leach soil salinity, and

then enhance the absorption of water by plant roots,

which effectively preserves moisture, and improve

saline-alkali land (Dou & Kang, 2010). The

film-mulching planting could effectively reduce soil

surface evaporation, maintain soil moisture and

inhibit the accumulation of salt to the soil surface

(Jiao et al., 2008). The root-limiting cultivation has

been a trial to introduce in the saline-alkali

cultivation. The ridge cultivation with root-zone

414

Weng, S., Wang, J., Wang, Y., Wu, W. and Zhang, X.

The Study on Tomato with Different Planting Patterns in Coastal Saline-Alkali Land.

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Water Resource and Environment (WRE 2021), pages 414-418

ISBN: 978-989-758-560-9; ISSN: 1755-1315



restriction cultivation could effectively improve the

survival rate of seedlings of Chinese wolfberry in

medium-to-severe saline-alkali soils (Jin et al., 2021).

In the light of the soil salinization, it has a great

significance in the choice of suitable planting

method in the coastal soil salinization areas.

In this paper, we have studied the effect on

tomato growth and soil surface conductivity with

three planting method under drip irrigation

conditions. The structure of the paper is as follows.

Materials and Methods are described in Section 2.

Results are discussed in Section 3. Section 4

contains concluding remarks.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1 Experimental Site

The experiments were conducted in the greenhouse

of the coastal experiment base of Jiangsu hydraulic

research Institute in 2020, Jiangsu. The annual

average temperature was 14.5℃, wind-speed was

3.3 m/s, and the annual average sunshine-hour was

2231.9 h. There was a large disparity in rainfall

during the flood season and non-flood season, 733.4

mm in the flood season and 331.8 mm in the

non-flood season. It was prone to drought and flood

disasters. The soil in the experiment area belonged to

coastal siltation sandy soil with light saline-alkaline

and strong water permeability, which was easy to

reach saturation during precipitation.

2.2 Experimental Material

The tested crop was tomato, and the variety was

Cooperative 903 Royal Scarlet. It was planted on

April 8, 2020, harvested began in mid-June, and

pulled up straw in late August.

2.3 Experimental Setup

The experiment was carried out in a glass

greenhouse, and the temperature was strictly

controlled to reduce the influence of uneven

temperature. There were three planting methods

(Figure 1), including root-limiter, ridge with

film-mulching, and ridge without film. The

fertilization and irrigation conditions were the same

in the three planting methods. The isolation belts and

protection lines were set up between the plots.

Root-limiter planting: The high of root-limiter

was 40 cm and the diameter was 30 cm. The

root-limiter was filled with 1 kg rice husk at the

bottom, and non-saline alkaline soil was loaded on

the rice husk. The spacing between rows of plants

was 80 cm, and the spacing between plants was 50

cm.

Ridge planting: There were 20 tomatoes in each

row, with single ridge and single row. The height of

ridge was 20 cm, the top width of ridge was 20 cm,

the bottom width of ridge was 60 cm. There was

80cm between the spacing of ridge. There was a drip

irrigation tape arranged for each row of crops. The

distance between the emitters was 50 cm, and the

flow rate of emitter was 1.5 L/h.

2.4 Experimental Parameters and

Methods

The conductivity of the lower layer soil under

different planting methods was measured by a

portable conductivity meter. The samples were

prepared with a ring knife. The plant height of

tomato was measured every 7 days with a tape

measure, after tomato transplanting. The yield of

plant was weighed independently at the harvest time.

There were 30 plants randomly measured with each

planting method.

2.5 Experimental Data Processing

The SPSS Statistics software was used to calculate

the standard error and variance analysis of the

experimental data. Therefore, the Origin software

was used for drawing.

3 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

3.1 The Effect of Plant Height with

Different Planting Methods

3.1.1 The Effect on the Growth Rate of Plant

Height

The growth regularity of tomato planted with

root-limiters showed a trend of slow growth first,

then rapid growth, and finally stable, in Figure 2.

Within 21 days, the plant height increased rapidly,

with an average increase of 22 cm and a growth rate

of 0.79 cm/d. From 21 to 42 days, it was a rapid

growth stage, with an average increase of 43 cm and

a growth rate of 2.05 cm/d. From 42 to 70 days, the

growth rate of plants tended to be stable, with an

average increase of 9.1 cm, and the growth rate was

0.33 cm/d.

The Study on Tomato with Different Planting Patterns in Coastal Saline-Alkali Land

415



The growth trend of ridge-planting was basically

the same as root-limiter planting. In the first 21 days,

the height of tomato increased by an average of 20

cm, and the growth rate was 0.54 cm/d. From 21 to

42 days, it grew with an average increase of 42 cm

and the growth rate was 2.00 cm/d. From 42 to 70

days, the growth rate of crops represented an average

increase of 10.2 cm, and the growth rate was 0.36

cm/d.

Figure 1: The layout of experimental area with different planting methods.

Figure 2: The influence of plant height on tomato with

different planting methods.

In summary, the plant height raised the fastest

with the root-limiter planting method. During

full-growth period, the law of the plant height and

the growth rate with three planting methods

expressed as root-limiter > ridge-planting with film >

ridge-planting without film.

3.1.2 The Effect on the Final Plant Height

The growth rate of plant height with different growth

stages and different planting methods was different,

which resulted in different final plant heights.

Comparing to ridge planting and ridge planting

without film, the final plant height of tomatoes

planted with root-restrictor planting during the whole

growth period was the highest. The tomato with

root-limiter was 4.0 cm and 9.5 cm taller than the

ridge-planting with film and ridge-planting without

film, respectively. The reason was that the rice husk

blocked the penetration of salt and the root-limiter

was filled in off-site soil with low salt content. In the

first 21 days, there was little difference in plant

height of tomato planted with two ridge-planting

methods. The temperature was relatively low in the

greenhouse, and the evaporation was small. The soil

salinization was not obvious, and soil salinity has

little effect on plant growth in the early stage of

planting. Furthermore, the tomato plants were small,

with less water required in the early stage of planting.

From 21 to 42 days, the difference in plant height

gradually increased between the two ridge-plantings.

WRE 2021 - The International Conference on Water Resource and Environment

416



The tomato plants of ridge with film-mulching were

6.5 cm taller, comparing to the ridge with non-film

planting. The plant's water-demand and

transpiration-evaporation were enhanced with the

temperature rising in the greenhouse. Based on the

same irrigation system, the water retention capacity

of ridge with film-mulching was better than that of

ridge without film. In summary, root-limiter planting

and ridge with film-mulching could promote the

growth of tomatoes, and root-restrictor planting was

the more prominent among the three planting

methods.

Figure 3: The influence of tomato yield with different

planting methods.

3.2 The Effect on Plant Yield with

Different Planting Methods

It showed that the planting method had a greater

impact on yield of tomato in Figure 3. Root-limiter

and ridge-mulching planting performed better than

ridge without film. The average yield per plant with

root-limiter was 1018.0g, which performed the

highest. The average yield per plant with

ridge-mulching was 976.1g, and the ridge without

film was 650.0g barely.

According to one-way ANOVA(Analysis of

variance) of planting method and tomato yield, the

planting method had a significant impact on tomato

yield(P < 0.001, The P value is the probability,

which reflects the probability of occurrence of an

event). The result of analysis of variance showed

that there was no significant difference between

root-limiter and ridge-mulching, and it was

significantly different compared to the ridge without

film. The yield of plant was mainly determined by

the input of water and assimilation substances.

Furthermore, the accumulation of salt in the surface

lowered the yield of tomato with ridge without film.

3.3 The Effect on Soil Conductivity

with Different Planting Methods

The conductivity of surface soil was 315.6μs/cm

with the root-limiter at the end of the growth period,

and increase range was 2.0% according to

non-planting (Figure 4). At the same time, the ridge

with film-mulching appeared 803μs/cm and 5.2%, as

well as the ridge without film appeared 803μs/cm

and 22.0%. The conductivity of the surface soil had

small increases during the tomato growth period

with root-limiter and ridge with film-mulching. In

contrast, the conductivity increased greatly with

ridge without film. It showed that the difference

between planting and non-planting was significant,

and the salinification of soil was obvious.

Figure 4: The effect on soil conductivity with different

planting methods.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The plant’s height and yield of tomato with different

planting methods in coastal saline-alkali land were

studied in the paper. It was concluded that the plant’s

height and yield with root-limiter performed the best

among three planting methods, and the ridge with

film-mulching was better than the ridge without film.

According to the conductivity, the planting with

root-limiter and ridge with film-mulching could

inhibition the salinification of soil.

In conclusion, the ridge with film-mulching

planting could be adopted in the greenhouse of

low-salinization with drip irrigation. The root-limiter

planting with external-soil could be applied in the

greenhouse of heavy-salinization.

The Study on Tomato with Different Planting Patterns in Coastal Saline-Alkali Land

417



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The paper is funded by the Water Resources Science

and Technology Project of Jiangsu Province (Grant

No. 2019040).

REFERENCES

Dou, C. Y., & Kang, Y. H. (2010). Characteristics of soil

salinity distribution in saline-sodic soil with shallow

water table under mulch-drip irrigation in different

planting years. Soils, 42, 630-638.

Gao, Q., & Lu, N. (2021). Current status and prospect of

research on comprehensive management and

development of saline-alkali land. Application of New

Technology, 52(16), 153-155.

Jiao, Y. P., Kang, Y. H., Wan, S. Q., Sun, Z. Q., Liu, W.,

& Dong, F. (2008). Effect of soil matric potential on

the distribution of soil salt under drip irrigation on

saline and alkaline land in arid regions. Transactions

of the CSAE, 24(6), 53-58.

Jin, W., & Wang, H., et al. (2021). Movement of soil water

and salt of drip irrigation under different ridge

cultivation methods with root domain restrictions.

Northern Horticulture, 9, 93-103.

Li, C. M., & Wang, Y. B. (2007). Research on status and

influencing factors of soil salinization in Ningxia

Yellow-River irrigation area. Ground Water, 29,

41-44.

Liu, M., & Wang, Z. C., et al. (2021). Application progress

of biochar in amelioration of saline-alkaline soil.

Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 35, 1-8.

Liu, L. N. (2021). Improvement effects of several control

measures on saline-alkali soil in Northern Shanxi

Province. Shanxi Forestry Scinence and Technology,

50, 36-38.

Lu, J. Y., Cao, Y., & Sun, X. M. (2009). The prevention

and control of salt damage in greenhouse soil.

Northwest Gardening of China, 1, 44.

Qiao, Y. H., & Wang, Y. H. (2021). The effect of NyPa

forage on soil improvement of coastal saline-alkali

land. Chinese Agricultural Science Bulletin, 37, 67-72.

Zhang, M. (2011). Reasons and solutions for rapid

salinization of soil in greenhouses in Yancheng.

Modern Agricultural Science and Technology, 6,

261-264.

WRE 2021 - The International Conference on Water Resource and Environment

418