Desempenho de diferentes substratos em cultivo de alface aquapônico e hidropônico

Abstract

The present work had as objective to evaluate the production of lettuce grown in aquaponic and hydroponic system with different types of substrates. The research was carried out at the Federal University of Grande Dourados (UFGD). The experiment was conducted as a randomized block design with two treatments that correspond to the production systems and three treatments that correspond to the growing substrates. The substrates used were: coconut shell fiber (FC), expanded vermiculite (VE), and phenolic foam (EF). The growing systems used were: hydroponic system and aquaponic system The experiment was conducted in two crop cycles. The crop used was lettuce cv. Alcyone of the curly type. After harvesting, were analyzed the crop productivity, plant height and fresh shoot mass of the plants. In addition, leaf analyzes of the plants were performed. The means of the results were submitted to the Tukey test (p <0.05). The results showed that in the first crop cycle, the highest productivity was obtained by the grown plants in the hydroponic system (1.76 kg m-2). The substrates that obtained higher yields were expanded vermiculite (1.84 kg m-2) and coconut shell fiber (1.71 kg m-2). In the second crop cycle, the production systems were similar and the coconut husk fiber presented higher crop productivity (2.78 kg m-2). In relation to foliar analysis, while magnesium and potassium contents were similar among the production systems, calcium and nitrogen contents were similar between the production systems. As the plants did not present visual deficiency of nutrients, this suggests that as the hydroponic system, the aquaponic system provides favorable conditions for lettuce growing.