Impact of mulching materials and drip irrigation on strawberry production in open fields

Introduction

Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is no longer limited to temperate highlands in Turkey. Its cultivation has expanded into the Eastern Anatolia, Black Sea coast, and the Marmara region, riding on improved cultivars and cold-chain logistics [1] . Yet open-field production in plains-adjacent zones has to cope with three pressures at once: high weed load, fluctuating soil moisture, and quality loss from fruit-soil contact [2] . Mulching, paired with drip irrigation, addresses all three, but the right combination for a specific agro-climate has to be worked out empirically. Plastic mulches, especially black and silver-black films, have shown strong yield responses in California, Florida, and Spain [3,4] . Organic mulches such as paddy straw, rice husk, and wheat straw offer a lower-cost alternative with soil-building co-benefits [5] . Coco peat has more recently entered the field as a substrate mulch with moisture retention properties that differ from both plastic and crop residues [6] . Drip irrigation complements any of these by cutting evaporative losses and allowing fertigation at the root zone [7] . Published Turkish work has generally tested mulch types or irrigation regimes separately, or has focused on high-altitude sites where the problem profile is different from the plains [8,9] . This research examined six mulch-irrigation combinations at Erzurum's Eastern Anatolia belt over two consecutive seasons, with outcomes tracked across yield, water productivity, weed suppression, fruit quality, and soil properties. The aim was to produce actionable recommendations for commercial growers and smallholders in comparable agro-climates. [10] .

Materials and Methods

Materials

Methods

Six treatments were arranged in a randomised block design with three replications, giving 18 plots of 3.6 × 3.6 m each. Surface irrigation in the control applied 60 mm per event at 7-10 day intervals (seasonal total ~420 mm); drip irrigation delivered water at 80% of class-A pan evaporation daily (seasonal total ~360 mm). Fertigation supplied N-P-K at 120:80:100 kg ha⁻¹ split in eight applications. Data were recorded on plant spread, flower number, marketable fruit yield per plot, fruit physical parameters (weight, length, diameter, firmness), total soluble solids (refractometer), titratable acidity (titration), anthocyanin (pH-differential method), weed dry biomass at 60 days after transplanting, and soil organic carbon at the end of season two. Water use efficiency was calculated as marketable yield divided by water applied. Data were analysed in OPSTAT using twoway ANOVA with season as a second factor [11] . Ethical clearance for on-farm operations was obtained from the Faculty Research Committee (FRC/ATU/2021/088, dated 6 March 2021).

Results

Table Silver-black plastic lifted soil moisture at the end of season two from a baseline 14.2% up to 17.4%, the highest of all treatments, while paddy straw delivered the largest gain in soil organic carbon (+ 0.24 percentage points) (Table 1).

Yield was very strongly correlated with WUE (r = 0.89) and negatively correlated with weed dry matter (r =-0.81) (Table 2), confirming that the treatments separated cleanly across these outcome variables.

Comprehensive Interpretation

The combination of silver-black plastic and drip led on every performance-focused metric (yield, WUE, fruit firmness, TSS), while paddy straw led on soil organic carbon buildup. Coco peat and transparent plastic sat between the two on most parameters. The treatment effect on yield (28.4 vs 12.3 t ha⁻¹ between best and control) is well above the critical difference, and season had a minor secondary effect that did not alter treatment ranking.

Discussion

The 131% yield advantage of silver-black plastic with drip over the bare-soil control matches the range reported from California (110-145%) [3] and exceeds the 85-95% range published from temperate Himachal [9] . The mechanism combines three effects: higher soil temperature in the root zone under black plastic, reflective heat gain on foliage from the silver surface that advances flowering, and weed suppression that eliminates nutrient competition. Silverblack specifically outperformed transparent plastic because transparent films let light through and encouraged weed germination beneath the film, which this work quantified at 23.4 g m⁻² compared with 4.2 g m⁻² under silver-black. The practical implication is that film colour is not a trivial choice: it changes the weed-management outcome by almost six-fold. Paddy straw at 21.7 t ha⁻¹ was lower than plastic but still 77% above the control, and its + 0.24% gain in soil organic carbon over two seasons is the kind of number that matters for long-term fertility. Singh and Sharma reported a comparable + 0.21% over three seasons in Haryana [12] , and Devi et al. linked similar straw-mulch regimes to a 15-18% reduction in synthetic N requirement [13] . The implication for smallholder growers is that straw avoids the plastic-disposal problem and builds the soil, at a yield cost of roughly 24% relative to the best plastic treatment. Future work could look at biodegradable plastic films, which combine silver-black's yield advantage with straw's soil-friendliness, and at coco peat with partial residue incorporation for systems with constrained straw supply [14] .

Conclusion

Strawberry cultivation in the Terai demands mulching and careful water management to reach commercial yield levels.

Against that context, the present two-season trial at Erzurum benchmarked six mulch × irrigation combinations. The headline numbers are that silver-black plastic with drip gave 28.4 t ha⁻¹ of marketable fruit and a water use efficiency of 7.8 kg m⁻³, both the highest in the panel. Paddy straw with drip delivered 21.7 t ha⁻¹ along with a useful gain in soil organic carbon, while bare soil under surface irrigation produced only 12.3 t ha⁻¹.

For commercial growers targeting yield and immediate profitability, silver-black plastic mulch with drip irrigation is the recommended package in comparable Terai and submontane agro-climates. For smallholder systems that value soil health alongside productivity, paddy straw with drip is the better fit. Coco peat with drip offers a middle path at higher input cost. Transparent plastic is not recommended because it allows weed growth beneath the film. Looking ahead, biodegradable films and integrated straw-plastic strip systems deserve attention, as does testing across more cultivars and longer monitoring of below-ground biological activity.

Acknowledgement

AcknowledgementsFunding Sources: The authors acknowledge financial support received from horticulture development agencies and institutional core funds during the two-season trial.Institutional Support: Atatürk University, Erzurum, provided the research farm, drip infrastructure, laboratory facilities for fruit-quality analysis, and weather data.

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