Abstract
ABSTRACT The Brazilian semiarid is historically characterized by the water scarcity of good-quality. In this region there is great availability of groundwater reserves, however, these waters has high concentrations of dissolved salts, that makes them inappropriate to be used in the irrigation of most crops. The objective of this study was to evaluate the growth, production and salinity tolerance of three cauliflower cultivars in hydroponics NFT (Nutrient Film Technique), subjected to different electrical conductivities of the nutrient solution (ECsol) prepared with saline water. The experiment was carried out in a randomized blocks design in split-plot, with six replications. The plants were subjected to six levels of ECsol (1.94 - control, 3.24, 4.10, 5.04, 5.92 and 7.01 dS m-1) in the main plots, with three cauliflower cultivars (‘Piracicaba de Verão’, ‘Sabrina’ and ‘SF1758’) in the subplots, which were grown in the same hydroponic channel. Vegetative growth, inflorescence production and salinity tolerance of cultivars were evaluated. In general, except for the number of leaves, leaf width and fresh matters of leaves and shoot, the different ECsol levels negatively influenced the vegetative growth and inflorescences yield of cultivars cauliflower. The cultivars ‘Piracicaba de Verão’ and ‘Sabrina’ were considered moderately sensitive to salinity, while cultivar ‘SF1758’ was moderately tolerant to salinity.
Highlights
Large part of the Brazilian territory is under semiarid climate, which has limiting the regularity of agricultural and industrial productions, causing significant socioeconomic impacts
The plants were subjected to six levels of electrical conductivities of the nutrient solution (ECsol): 1.94, 3.24, 4.10, 5.04, 5.92 and 7.01 dS m-1 in the main plots, with three cauliflower cultivars (‘Piracicaba de Verão’, ‘Sabrina’ and ‘SF1758’) in the subplots, which were grown in the same hydroponic channel
The lowest means were found, in general, for the cultivar ‘Sabrina’, with plant height (PH), leaf length (LL), leaf width (LW), and leaves dry matter (LDM) means showing no significant differences to those obtained for cultivar ‘SF1758’ (Table 1)
Summary
Large part of the Brazilian territory is under semiarid climate, which has limiting the regularity of agricultural and industrial productions, causing significant socioeconomic impacts. The low rainfall and hydrogeology of the Semiarid region of Brazil hinder the storage of groundwater, which are usually brackish and explored at low flow rates. This region has thousands of abandoned wells, or wells that are not intended to agricultural activities (SOARES et al, 2010). The adoption of adequate technologies can mitigate the impacts caused by water scarcity. According to Tavakkoli, Rengasamy and McDonald (2010), plants that grow in soils with high salt contents have problems with the osmotic potential of the soil solution and soil matric potential, whereas the uptake of water for hydroponic crops considers only the osmotic potential of the solution
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