Water yield and consumption of cauliflower plants grown in a hydroponic system using brackish waters and different flow rates

Ruana I F Cruz,José A Santos Júnior,Ênio F De F E Silva,Gerônimo F Da Silva,Hammady R E Soares,Hugo R B Santos

doi:10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v25n6p422-428

Ruana I F Cruz, José A Santos Júnior + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-1929/agriambi.v25n6p422-428

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Abstract

HIGHLIGHTS Raising the flow rate of the nutrient solution with brackish water results in less water consumption in cauliflower. The water yield in cultivation of cauliflower depends on the chemical composition of the water used in the nutrient solution. The cauliflower production is viable in hydroponics using waters with electrical conductivities of up to 5.88 dS m-1.

Highlights

The energy reordering that the presence of salts triggers in plants is among the main problems of using brackish waters for agricultural production; it causes changes in water consumption, carbon assimilation and, in the water use yield (Bosco et al, 2009).Some regions usually undergo water shortages, such as the Semiarid region of the Northeast of Brazil, where agricultural crops are often grown using irrigation with underground brackish waters (Albuquerque et al, 2015)
The electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution (ECsol) (Figures 1A and B) in treatments with brackish water increased for both flow rates (1.5 and 2.5 L min-1), except for the treatment with municipal public water (MPW)
This decrease was due to the refilling of the water lost by evapotranspiration in this treatment (MPW), which presented low salinity (0.2 dS m-1); as the plants absorbed the nutrients from the solution, the EC of the solution decreased

Summary

Introduction

The energy reordering that the presence of salts triggers in plants is among the main problems of using brackish waters for agricultural production; it causes changes in water consumption, carbon assimilation and, in the water use yield (Bosco et al, 2009).Some regions usually undergo water shortages, such as the Semiarid region of the Northeast of Brazil, where agricultural crops are often grown using irrigation with underground brackish waters (Albuquerque et al, 2015). Nutrient film technique (NFT) hydroponics is among the technologies that can be used for the production of crops irrigated with brackish waters It generates products with high quality and provides high crop yields in short times (Paulus et al, 2012; Santos Júnior et al, 2015) and results in plants with higher resistance to salt stress than conventional crops (Soares et al, 2007). Despite NFT hydroponics is used for crops that are relatively tolerant to salt stress, such as cauliflower (Giuffrida et al, 2016), it presents specificities regarding the use of brackish waters that still require studies These specificities include the frequency and flow rate of the circulation of the nutrient solution (Silva Júnior et al, 2019; Soares et al, 2020), and the chemical composition of the waters used for the crops (Martins et al, 2019)

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