Abstract
Scaling agriculture to the globally rising population demands new approaches for future crop production such as multilayer and multitrophic indoor farming. Moreover, there is a current trend towards sustainable local solutions for aquaculture and saline agriculture. In this context, halophytes are becoming increasingly important for research and the food industry. As Salicornia europaea is a highly salt-tolerant obligate halophyte that can be used as a food crop, indoor cultivation with saline water is of particular interest. Therefore, finding a sustainable alternative to the use of seawater in non-coastal regions is crucial. Our goal was to determine whether natural brines, which are widely distributed and often available in inland areas, provide an alternative water source for the cultivation of saline organisms. This case study investigated the potential use of natural brines for the production of S. europaea. In the control group, which reflects the optimal growth conditions, fresh weight was increased, but there was no significant difference between the treatment groups comparing natural brines with artificial sea water. A similar pattern was observed for carotenoids and chlorophylls. Individual components showed significant differences. However, within treatments, there were mostly no changes. In summary, we showed that the influence of the different chloride concentrations was higher than the salt composition. Moreover, nutrient-enriched natural brine was demonstrated to be a suitable alternative for cultivation of S. europaea in terms of yield and nutritional quality. Thus, the present study provides the first evidence for the future potential of natural brine waters for the further development of aquaculture systems and saline agriculture in inland regions.
Highlights
Water scarcity already affects 1.2 billion people worldwide, and this development will be exacerbated by the impacts of climate change in the future [1,2]
To test the suitability of natural brine for saline indoor cultivation, (1) we investigated whether S. europaea can be cultivated with natural brines, (2) we characterized the basic composition of the salt-enriched nutrient solutions, and (3) we determined the yield and concentration of selected secondary metabolites to assess nutritional quality
The values were very similar in all three experiments and no significant difference was found in anion concentrations at the beginning and the end of each experiment (Table S1 in Supplementary Materials)
Summary
Water scarcity already affects 1.2 billion people worldwide, and this development will be exacerbated by the impacts of climate change in the future [1,2]. Faced with climate change-induced declines in drinking water resources and global population growth, alternative strategies for sustainable water use in agriculture are urgently needed to ensure food security and nutrition in the future [3]. Urbanization and limited agricultural land has led to a necessity for alternative cultivation systems, such as vertical farming, which offers efficient production sites and is becoming extremely relevant in regard to future cultivation [4]. The cultivation of salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) is an emerging field both in research and the food industry [8,9,10,11]. In this context, indoor cultivation with regional brine waters has three distinct advantages.
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