Daily water loss and daily evaporation from mulched and non-mulched 360 L lysimeters filled with substrate or soil following application of 60 L irrigation at day zero.
| Lysimeter contents/surface treatment | Daily water loss and (daily evaporation) in liters | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | |
| Substrate-filledz | |||
| Mulched surface | 18.5 (2.0)y ax | 2.0 (0.5) b | 1.0 (0.5)b |
| Non-mulched surface | 17.5 (1.0) b | 2.5 (1.0) a | 2.0 (1.0) a |
| Soil-filledz | |||
| Mulched surface | 21.0 (0.5) a | 3.0 (1.0) a | 2.0 (0.5) a |
| Non-mulched surface | 21.5 (1.0) a | 3.5 (1.5) a | 2.0 (0.5) a |
↵zSubstrate = bark:peat:sand substrate used in nursery containers, study conducted spring 2007; soil = fine sand native soil, study conducted autumn 2007.
↵yDaily evaporation (in parentheses) calculated as daily water loss from open lysimeters minus mean daily water loss from four covered control lysimeters.
↵xDaily evaporation means, within a lysimeter content, in a column with a different letter are statistically different at P < 0.05. Means based on nine replication lysimeters averaged across four dry-down period blocks.