Abstract—Soil solarization is a well consolidated agronomic practice. The only limit of this natural practice is its duration, which normally reaches five-six weeks. Sometimes, because of the intensive cultivation, the available time between two vegetal cycles is shorter than that required for a good solarization result. In these cases, harmful alternative practices based on chemicals, like fumigation, are employed. In our work, we studied a new approach based on the combined use of a solarizing film and a biodegradable black liquid. The hybrid proposed system simulates a thermal solar panel and it behaves in the same way to increase the water temperatures in the soil. Therefore, higher soil temperatures are reached with a satisfactory sterilization effect obtained in shorter times, compared to the traditional method. The reported temperature data, collected at different depth of soil as a function of time, confirm the validity of our idea showing a helpful alternative respect to the present solarization method. 
 

Index Terms—solarization improvement, photoselective plastic films, biodegradable spray materials, new agronomical practice

Cite: Pasquale Mormile, Massimo Rippa, Lucia Petti, Barbara Immirzi, Mario Malinconico, Ernesto Lahoz, and Luigi Morra, "Improvement of Soil Solarization through a Hybrid System Simulating a Solar Hot Water Panel," Journal of Advanced Agricultural Technologies, Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 226-230, September 2016. Doi: 10.18178/joaat.3.3.226-230