Lettuce (Lactuca sativa L) Growth in Aeroponic Systems with Differences in Nutritional Time

Abstract

Lettuce is one of the vegetables that are often found and consumed by the people of Indonesia, but the demand for lettuce is always not fulfilled because the low production. Aeroponic system is one of the alternatives to solve this problem, because the aeroponic system has many advantages and does not require a large area of land. The purpose of this study was to observe differences in the timing of nutrition in lettuce plants with an aeroponic system. The study used a randomized block design (RBD) with a single factor, consisting of 6 treatments with 5 replications, so there were 60 experimental units. [t1= 30 seconds (on) : 10 minutes (off)]; [t2= 30 seconds (on) : 15 minutes (off)]; [t3= 30 seconds (on) : 20 minutes (off)]; [t4= 30 seconds (on) : 25 minutes (off)]; [t5= 30 seconds (on) : 30 minutes (off)]; [t6= (Non-Stop)]. The results showed that the difference in time of giving nutrition to lettuce in the aeroponic system affected the growth of lettuce and resulted in differences in plant height, number of leaves, stem diameter, leaf area and fresh weight for each lettuce plant. Treatment t6 (continuous nutrition / Non Stop) was known to be the optimum treatment which produced lettuce with a fresh weight of 207.5 g.