CHARCOAL CHIPS AS A PRACTICAL SUBSTRATE FOR CONTAINER HORTICULTURE IN THE HUMID TROPICS

A. Santiago, L. Santiago
Experiments in the use of crushed, sieved, graded and washed charcoal chips used as pure substrates for growing various kinds of foliage, flowering and fruiting plants in containers in the open, in rain soaked and humid Malaysia and supplied with commercial fertilisers have produced highly meaningful results. They include practical, commercial and theoretical implications for increasing plant productivity in the humid tropics, as well as in other parts of the world. The details of the methods of growing the various kinds of plants in charcoal chips together with practical cycling of the chips are discussed.

Wood with large vessels, tracheids and extensive packings of parenchyma in fast growing trees in the humid tropics make highly porous charcoal chips for growing plants. Trees, being natural and renewable resources throughout the year in the humid tropics, provide opportunities for the countries there to produce the charcoal chips on an industrial scale. They may be produced for local use and for export to countries where plants are extensively grown under protective cultivation.

Guidelines for intensive researches in various aspects of the subject in all parts of the world to perfect the methods are proposed and discussed.

Santiago, A. and Santiago, L. (1989). CHARCOAL CHIPS AS A PRACTICAL SUBSTRATE FOR CONTAINER HORTICULTURE IN THE HUMID TROPICS. Acta Hortic. 238, 141-148
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.238.16
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1989.238.16

Acta Horticulturae