SOIL MULCHING AFFECTS FRUIT QUALITY IN STRAWBERRY - Ecological Consequences of Increasing Crop Productivity - page 168

17.1 INTRODUCTION
Strawberry is one of the most popular fruit crops in the world, which is due to its gust-
able, curative-dietary properties, and high economic efficiency of cultivation. Straw-
berries are an excellent dessert product owing to their tender pulp, easy assimilability,
and a balance of sugars and acids of the berries.
Berries are consumed as fresh and preserves. Strawberry plants are rich in sugars,
organic acids, microelements, and vitamins. They contain small amounts of tanning
substances, volatile oils, pectin substances, anthocyanin compounds, salts of iron,
phosphorus, calcium, cobalt, manganese, and potassium.
Intensive technologies with the use of highly productive cultivars, dense planting
schemes, and shortened plantation rotation are used in current strawberry cultivation.
Production systems are very important for the post-harvest quality of the berries, in-
cluding storage terms, susceptibility to gray mold, fruit fi rmness, and polyphenolic
compound content [1].
It is a known fact [2] that the application of mulching while growing strawberries
increases soil temperature by 0.5-2.0°С at the depth of 5-10 cm, enhances berry rip-
ening by 2-11 days, and facilitates the number of harvesting by 1-4. The use of black
polyethylene as mulch helps increase plant biomass by 33 percent, yielding capacity
increases by 16.4-26.1 percent, and marketable output increases by 9.0 percent. Using
grain straw as mulch increases yielding capacity by 9.6 percent and marketable out-
put by 4.3 percent [3]. The fi ndings by Fan L. et al. [4] prove that plastic mulch with
the covered rows improves strawberry quality considerably, and the research done in
Poland [5] indicates that mulching results in the increase of the strawberries (class
'Ekstra'). Sharma et al. [6] and Wang et al. [7] observed the connection between the
increased fruit output per plant, their average weight, dry substance content and berry
fi rmness, and increased soil temperature and quality of the radiation under the cover.
The application of mulching in strawberry production awakens interest as to stor-
age terms, mass losses, and content of chemical composition components. Wang S. Y.
et al. [8] studied the effect of mulch types on chemical composition of the strawberry
plants. High content of soluble carbohydrates was recorded in the berries grown with
the use of black polyethylene compared with that of red one and grain hay. Similar
results were received in the trials carried out in Columbia [9]: the use of black polyeth-
ylene has a positive effect on dry soluble substances and titratable acidity.
The experiments carried out by Fan L. et al. [1] state that the use of plastic mulch
decreases weight losses, sap leak, and the development of gray mold very much when
strawberries are stored, compared with those grown under a matted system. The shine
of these berries remains within 3 days after the harvest when they are stored at room
temperature.
The purpose of our research was to evaluate the effect of mulching types on the
change of quality indicators of the strawberries during the storage.