Abstract: An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of mulching methods on soil fertility and the yield and quality of tomato. Two tomato varieties ‘Zhongyan 988’ and ‘Fenbei 3’ were grown in a plastic greenhouse, and five treatments of mulching methods were used including 1) control where no mulching was used; 2) plastic film mulching; 3) straw mulching; 4) straw mulching on plastic film (straw/film); and 5) plastic film on straw mulching (film/straw). Soil fertility and tomato yield and quality were compared between the four treatments of mulching and the control. The results showed that all mulching methods increased the moisture content in the surface soil. Straw mulching reduced the soil surface temperature, while plastic film mulching and film/straw mulching increased the temperature of soil surface. At the same depth, soil organic matter and available nutrient contents were significantly higher under the film/straw mulching than in the other treatments. The available soil nutrient contents under the different treatments all decreased with soil depth. The yield of tomato fruit was the highest and the quality of tomato fruit was best with the film/straw mulching. In conclusion, ground mulching can improve the soil fertility, and improve the yield and quality of tomato fruit; among the different mulching methods, plastic film mulching on straw was the optimal one.

Key words: adsorption rate, lytic cycle, burst size, nutrient concentration, mortality rate., cyanophage