SUBSTRATES FOR GROWING FLOWER AND OTHER GREENHOUSE CROPS (OVERVIEW)

The review paper provides an analysis of foreign and domestic publications for the period 1940–2016, which is devoted to the study of various substrates within growing flower-ornamental and vegetable crops in greenhouse and used in cultural turnover. A separate part of the review is devoted to the research on optimizing substrates for roses (as the main cut culture in Russia), using different types of soils, peat, manure, sand, volcanic tuff, etc. For the crops with a short growing cycle (chrysanthemum, carnation, gerbera, etc.) the main attention, along with the soil substrates, is given to groundless organic and mineral substrates – peat and mineral wool; the last has been used more and more widely in the world for the recent years. Some modern non-substrate systems are discussed: on the circulating nutrient solution by the NFT method (nutrient film technics); in the deep nutrient stream by the DWC method (a deep water culture) or the raft method. The advantages and disadvantages of using such systems, various substrates and fillers of hydroponic systems are indicated.