Katrine A. Stewart¹ and Fahrurrozi Aziz²
Department of Plant Science, Macdonald Campus of McGill University,
21,111 Lakeshore Road, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, H9X 2E4, Quebec Canada.
²Fakultas Pertanian Universitas Bengkulu,
Jalan Raya Kandang Limun, Bengkulu, 38371A, Indonesia.

Keywords: Mini-tunnels, thermal-water tubes, trenching, heats collected and released, chlorination

Abstract:  Placement of the thermal-water tube in a mulched mini-tunnel production system can be a major problem for commercial adoption of this technique in a plasticulture system.  An experiment to determine the effects of tube placement and water chlorination on temperatures in mulched mini-tunnels was conducted during the fall of 1999. Thermal-water tubes were placed on top of or trenched in the mulched surface of the mini-tunnels.  The tubes contained either plain or chlorinated water (500 ppm of muriate potash).  The use of thermal-water tube significantly decreased maximum, but increased minimum, air temperatures in the mini-tunnels. There were no significant differences in terms of air and soil temperatures if the thermal-water tubes laid on or were trenched in the mulched surface.  The daily heat collected and released by the trenched thermal-water tubes was significantly less than those of the surface thermal-water tubes, but there was no effect of tube depth. Using chlorinated water in the tubes significantly decreased the minimum and increased the maximum soil temperatures.  Results suggested that trenching thermal-water tubes to avoid installation problem can be done without significant negative effect on both air and soil temperatures.

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