Abstract
Lettuce is the most important leafy vegetable in Brazil. Hydroponic lettuce cultivation has grown due to the viability of harvesting throughout the year. In this context, this study aimed to evaluate the agronomic characteristics, color, and preference of curly lettuce in the NFT hydroponic system. Six lineages (6601-1A, 6601-2L, 7016-6A, 7119-1B, 7223-1A, and 7224-4A) and two commercial cultivars (Brida and Vanda) of lettuce were used, in a completely randomized blocks design with four replications. Shoot length, root length, stem length, number of leaves, stem diameter, plant diameter, shoot fresh mass, root fresh mass, chlorophyll content, instrumental color, and sensory characteristics were evaluated. As for agronomic evaluation, the bolting of 6601-2L lettuce was relevant in different attributes. The Vanda lettuce and the lineage 7016-6A presented best performances for shoot fresh mass (399.44 and 378.63 g, respectively), while the lineages 7119-1B and 6601-2L present the worst performance (279.50 and 273.13 g, respectively). There was variation in chlorophyll content and luminosity, however, the evaluators did not notice differences between lettuces for brightness or green color, as well as for crunchy texture. Lettuces 6601-2L, 7224-4A, 6601-1A, Brida, 7223-1A, and 7119-1B were preferred. The variation among plants may be due to different situations, such as harvesting times and bolting, and a direct relationship between agronomic properties and preference among lettuces has not been established yet.
Highlights
Lettuce is the most important leafy vegetable in Brazil (Sala and Costa 2012), preferably used in salads, with high acceptance and ease preparation
Of results of the present study, when was registered plant diameter of 27.23 cm for cultivar Brida, under hydroponic cultivation Longatti et al (2014) obtained a plant diameter of 38.70 cm for the same lettuce cultivar used in the present study. This may be due to the evaluation of lettuces with the greatest number of days after sowing, once the mentioned authors carried out the evaluation with 67 DAS and the present study evaluated with 56 DAS
There was a great variation in the agronomic and sensory characteristics of the lettuces studied. Such variation may be due to different situations, such as harvest time and bolting
Summary
Lettuce is the most important leafy vegetable in Brazil (Sala and Costa 2012), preferably used in salads, with high acceptance and ease preparation. According to Filgueira (2003), the plant grows all year round but adapts better in mild temperatures. Lettuce has changed in terms of the varietal types preferred by consumers and cultivation technologies. Until the 1980s, Brazil had a pattern of consumption of smooth lettuce. One of the big changes was the adoption of curly lettuce, both by the farmer and the consumer. This type tends to be more resistant in the summer, showing an advantage concerning the smooth type since its leaves do not form heads, which leads to less loss by the producer (Sala and Costa 2012)
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