Lettuce cultivation submitted to mulching treatments under open environment

ABSTRACT The authors aimed to evaluate the behavior of lettuce (Lactuca sativa), cv. Solaris, submitted to mulching in open environment. The experiment was carried out from April to June 2012, in the experimental area at Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso, in Tangará da Serra, Brazil. The experiment was conducted on the field, being the experimental design completely randomized with six treatments and four replicates. The treatments consisted of the mulching types: black polyethylene, white polyethylene, black TNT, white TNT, rice husk and one treatment without mulching (bare soil). The evaluated traits were plant and stalk diameter, length of the stalk, total and commercial number of leaves, total and commercial fresh matter. The use of mulching with white polyethylene and rice husk favored the production of lettuce in tropical environment, obtaining the highest averages for the production variables total fresh matter (322.55 and 304.80 g/plant, respectively), commercial fresh matter (276.74 and 274.54 g/plant, respectively), total number of leaves (26.4 and 25.7 leaves, respectively), number of commercial leaves (21.7 and 22.1 leaves, respectively) and stalk length (5.48 and 5.79 cm, respectively).