Abstract
Soil solarization (Solar heating of soil) is being watched as a nonchemical farmland disinfection method. In order to improve this method to an environmentally sound technology, field trials were conducted in the plastic greenhouse of the Wakayama Agricultural Experiment Station. In addition, numerical simulations using the field trial results were also conducted. The target depth to integrate the disinfecting time is 30 cm and the required time to complete soil solarization is 100 hours in the site. The results showed that the diurnal variation of soil surface temperature and the initial soil temperature greatly influence the soil temperature change in the targeted depth and the required time to complete soil solarization. Moreover, the results of the numerical simulations revealed that the proper diurnal variation of soil surface temperature to effectively conduct soil solarization was 33°C to 63°C or more.
