Orchardists and gardeners are always searching for methods to improve plants and fruits in contemporary times. Photosynthesis plays an important role in the growth of fruit, especially for some light-loving fruits such as apples, kiwis, pears, and cherries. The quality of these fruits is most affected by light.
Increasing the quality and duration of light for plants is a key issue to consider for orchards. Reflective ground cover is a type of ground cover that increases light reflection for fruit trees. Here’s what you need to know about the reflective ground cover.
Relationship Between Light and Plant Growth
UV (Ultraviolet) and PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) are vital for plant growth. UV includes UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C, with UV-A promoting photosynthesis, flowering, and fruit ripening, but excessive UV-B can damage leaves. PAR is the visible light range (400 to 700 nm) crucial for photosynthesis. Higher PAR intensity enhances plant growth rate, yield, and root/leaf development. Optimizing lighting and controlling UV exposure improves plant growth quality and yield.
What is Reflective Ground Cover?
A reflective Ground Cover is a kind of Agrotech. The Agricultural textiles mainly improve canopy reflection of light. Its main function is to reflect the light that hits the ground back onto the fruit in order to allow more light to reach the middle and lower parts of the fruit, thus improving the quality of the fruit.
Reflective Ground Screen is designed to cover the surface directly under the plants，or the whole orchard floor，in order to optimize the quantity of light reflected in the trees.
The use of ground reflective cover increases the PAR on fruit trees by approximately 30-40%。
5 Things about Reflective Ground Cover : You Need to Know
5 Features of Reflective Ground Film
1. Durable and Reusable:
These reflective ground screens are made from aluminum foil and high-density polyethylene, which ensure the orchard can repeat using them for more than 5 years. Once your fruit has been harvested, the reflective ground screens can be stored away for the next season’s use, saving you a lot of money!
2. Rainproof and Corrosion Resistant
These materials are rainproof and corrosion-resistant. You don’t have to worry about it being damaged by rain. Rain does not affect its reflective effect either. None of this will happen. Even if you use it continuously for several years, you still don’t have to worry about its effectiveness.
3. Uniform reflection, large angle of reflection
The reflective ground film has a markedly improved effect on the light environment, in particular by providing a more even distribution of light around fruit trees. Reflective ground covers reflect visible and UV light evenly. When used as a ground cover, it has a suitable angle of reflection and can effectively change the color of fruit up to approximately 1 meter from the ground.
4. Free to Adjust the Reflectance of Light
Within a certain range, the more sunlight a plant receives, the higher the photosynthetic rate. The most effective wavelength range for photosynthesis is from 400 nm to 700 nm. Although light is essential for photosynthesis, too much light has a negative effect on photosynthesis, as it can lead to photoinhibition. Therefore, a reflective ground screen with different reflectance is required depending on the characteristics of different fruit tree species in different geographical locations. The reflectivity of the ground cover can be freely adjusted by means of a striped aluminum foil reflective ground screen. Problems such as fruit burn due to excessive reflection can be avoided.
5. Environmentally friendly and non-toxic materials
The materials used in reflective ground films are environmentally friendly and non-toxic. It provides maximum protection for the environment, increasing the yield of your orchard without putting an extra burden on the environment.
7 Benefits of Reflective Fabric
Impact on Color:
Reflective Ground Cover basically has a positive effect on the color of the fruit. It provides the necessary light to the fruit and the tree through the reflection of the sun, which helps in enhancing the quality by making the fruit brighter.
Impact on Size:
Adequate light not only increases brightness but also stimulates the dormant development of a fruit. As a result, the size of the fruit is relatively large.
Impact on Taste:
Studies have shown that adequate light supply helps in the taste or growth of fruits. If adequate light can be provided to the fruit and fruit tree, then the balance of juice and sugar in the fruit is maintained, which makes the fruit tastier.
Impact on Harvest Time:
Reflective ground covers to increase the light exposure of fruit trees. Studies have shown that cherry trees treated with reflective ground covers reach optimum commercial maturity 5 days earlier than untreated fruit. Early harvest time increases the economic value of fruit, especially high-value fruit such as cherries.
Increased Phenolic Content of the Fruit
A study showed the phenolic content of kiwifruit has increased by around 20% with the use of the reflective ground screen. Phenolic substances have an antioxidant effect and the increase in these substances is a further improvement in the quality of the fruit. It is more beneficial to human health.
Pest control
When a reflective ground screen is installed prior to flowering, the bright light reflected from the canopy has the effect of repelling western flower thrips. The reflective ground screen that covers the ground also prevents the apple leaf midge from pupating in the soil, reducing the production of these pests.
Weed Prevention
Another effect of using a reflective ground screen is that it can control the growth of weeds. These weeds, which not only consume the energy needed by the fruit trees but also make the orchard look dirty, can save the time needed to tidy up the orchard.
4 Applications of Reflective Ground Screen
Reflective Ground Screen has shown its value in the cultivation of many fruit trees. Used on many farms, these covers have been found to improve the quality of fruit in most light-loving fruit tree plantings.
Apple Planting
For apples, one of the measures of their quality is the color of the skin.
How can a red apple not catch the eye of the consumer?
It has been proven in studies that the color of apples is very much related to light.
You need to lay a reflective ground screen on the ground a few weeks before harvest and the color of these apples will definitely exceed your expectations.
Cherry Planting
With the use of reflective ground film in cherry planting, the soluble solids content of cherry increased compared to cherries grown without reflective ground film.
These substances give the cherries a better taste.
And the cherry fruit weight, color, and hardness are all improved, and these enable the cherries in your orchard to ripen about 5 days earlier.
And these are important factors for you to get a head start on the market, the earlier you can market your cherries the better the price you will get.
Kiwifruit Planting
In kiwifruit cultivation, a dense canopy is usually produced, affecting the light level of the fruit at the lowest part of the canopy.
This can cause a reduction in the quality of the fruit. In addition, poor light conditions can cause the fruit to ripen later. This results in smaller, lighter-colored fruit, less firm flesh, and poorer flavor.
Research has also shown that:
kiwifruit fruit grown at high light intensities has high quality and can be stored for a long time.
Pear Planting
Reflective ground cover can also be used for growing pear trees.
An experiment carried out in Denmark also showed that:
Reflective ground cover allows pear trees to grow larger and produce more flower buds per tree, which means that the yield of pear trees can be significantly increased.
When should you use Reflective Ground Cover for the orchard?
In the orchard, a reflective ground screen is laid under the tree after flowering and left there until harvest.
There are different reasons and times for which fruit trees use reflective screens.
- They can be used to improve color, flavor, and sweetness.
- Meanwhile, others want to advance and uniformly mature their fruit.
Some growers want to increase the size of their fruit or reduce the damage the fruit receives from certain pests.
Various wine grape growers have used it to improve the taste of their wine by using this method.
The reflective ground screen can be used at different times depending on the needs of the application.
For apple trees, in order to color the apples, these films are usually applied a few weeks before harvest.
The color response is usually particularly quick and a noticeable effect is noticed within a few days of application.
Conclusion
It’s often the little things that have a huge effect. Why do you want to leave factors like fruit size and color to fate as a professional fruit grower?
EyouAgro Reflective Ground Cover is a simple and effective way to guarantee that your fruits are brightly colored and of high quality.
Eyouagro is a green solution manufacturing company that deals with crop protection netting. Our consumers have long enjoyed our services since we have been in existence for more than 23 years. Our netting products include frost protection, wind protection, pest control, bird control, ground cover, fruit harvest, among many others. Our quality is guaranteed.
So, contact us and make inquiries here today! Kindly also visit the Eyouagro for information on netting products.
