Biodegradable Recycled Paper Mulch Reduces Strawberry Water Consumption and Crop Coefficient

Abstract

Mulching with recycled paper has the potential to be used in agricultural production and can be adopted in strawberry cultivation. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the agronomic characteristics, water consumption and technical coefficients of strawberry cultivated with recycled paper as mulch. The treatments consisted of strawberry cultivation in lysimeters with recycled paper mulch and without soil cover. The recycled paper used was 187 μm-thick. The irrigation system was installed with drippers whose flow rate was 2 L h−1. Strawberry irrigation requirements were 317 and 394 mm, with and without mulch, respectively. Mulching with recycled paper did not have a significant effect on the average number of fruits, fresh fruit mass, fruit waste per plant, average fruit yield and water productivity. In relation to the technical coefficients, maximum values of the evaporation coefficient (Ke) of 0.40 (calculated with the evapotranspiration of the grass—L) and 0.28 (calculated with the Penman–Monteith ETo—PM) were obtained for OPM. The Kc values for the initial and full development stages were 0.31 and 0.84 (L) and 0.24 and 0.66 (PM), respectively. NDVI can be used to estimate strawberry Kc values. Recycled paper as mulch reduces the water consumption of strawberry crops and does not alter the agronomic characteristics.