Abstract
Conventional agricultural production faces numerous challenges due to the pronounced effects of climate change, particularly global warming, and drought more than ever before in history, with the primary concern being to produce adequate yields and high-quality, nutritious plant material. Likewise, people are increasingly looking for new sources of food and are becoming aware of the importance of a varied diet and its connection to health. In this sense, stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.) stands out as a valuable species that is neglected as a food source, as it has a significant content of specialized metabolites, and thus has an extremely high potential for use both nutritionally and pharmacologically, but is still traditionally collected from natural habitats, so it can be of questionable quality and undefined chemical composition. Therefore, sustainable agricultural practices are increasingly shifting to modern hydroponic cultivation methods in greenhouses. The advantage lies in the easier management and control of a number of factors during cultivation (air temperature and relative humidity, balanced and rational fertilization, minimization of nitrate uptake, etc.), ensuring better conditions for the growth and development of nettle according to its needs. The aim of this review is to give an overview of the technology of stinging nettle cultivation in the field and to show the possibilities of cultivation with modern hydroponic techniques to obtain a final product of consistent and uniform quality, high content of specialized metabolites and significant nutritional value. Research on this topic is still sparse but will certainly increase in the future. Therefore, this review provides all the necessary data for such future studies.
Highlights
The current trend among consumers is to pay more attention to a balanced diet and the consumption of wild leafy plants, as they are recognized as a source of a high content of phytonutrients [1,2,3,4], which play an important role in the prevention of many chronic diseases [5]
One of these wild edible species is stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.), which has been known since ancient times for its medicinal value as a herbal remedy for the treatment of numerous health problems [3,6,7,8]
Nettle is perhaps one of the most widely distributed wild plants, found in all regions of the temperate zones and growing in all seasons [3]. It is consumed as a green vegetable in some parts of the world, it is often considered a weed and neglected despite its high nutritional value [8,9,10,11]
Summary
The current trend among consumers is to pay more attention to a balanced diet and the consumption of wild leafy plants, as they are recognized as a source of a high content of phytonutrients [1,2,3,4], which play an important role in the prevention of many chronic diseases [5] One of these wild edible species is stinging nettle (Urtica dioica L.), which has been known since ancient times for its medicinal value as a herbal remedy for the treatment of numerous health problems [3,6,7,8]. According to various studies [1,2,3,16,17], the presence of chemical components in plants is variable, of inconsistent quality and depends on many abiotic, biotic and anthropological factors as well as on the conditions of raw material storage
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