Abstract

This research was carried out to determine the effect of soil addition to perlite medium on strawberry growth in Erzurum, Turkey. Five different levels of soils (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50% by volume) were added to perlite and 100% perlite was used as a control. The amount of moisture retained at different tensions and distribution of pore size of these growing media were determined. Some vegetative plant properties such as the number of leaves, leaf area, most developed root length and increasing fresh weight of strawberry plants cv. Camarosa grown on these medium were determined. Soil addition caused a decrease of macropores in the growing media while the vegetative parameters of the strawberry plant improved during cultivation period.

Key words: Pore size distribution, soil-perlite mixture media, strawberry plant growth, water retention.