CULTIVATION OF NOVEL LINEAGES OF THE SEA ASPARAGUS Salicornia neei WITH SALINE EFFLUENT OF SHRIMP FARMING IN FIELD PLOTS

Salicornia neei Lag. is a native species of the Brazilian coast with high nutritional quality and can be cultivated with sea water. Since 2010, a breeding program generated distinctive pure lineages of S. neei but their growth under saline irrigation yet need to be evaluated. Plants of f3 and f4 progenies of both BTH1 and BTH2 lineages of S. neei (n= 20 per progenies) were grown in two field plots with fine sand soil (6.5 × 3.5 m), which were randomly assigned to be irrigated with 375 L of shrimp farming effluent every other day (T2) and every 4 days (T4) for 22 weeks.

The saline effluent was the main source of nutrients and water for S. neei plants. During the growth period, the average values (± standard error) of water salinity, pH, nitrate, ammonium and phosphate were 18.50 dS m^-1, 8.65 ± 0.04, ≤ 0.03 NO3-N mg L^-1, 0.15 ± 0.13 NH4-N mg L^-1, 0.30 ± 0.05 and PO4-P mg L^-1, respectively. The average daily temperature, rainfall and solar radiation were 21.2 ± 0.4 ºC, 2.2 ± 0.1 mm day^-1 and 1835 ± 26 kJ m^-2 hour^-1. Over the last 13 weeks of the experiment, during summer-fall 2015, felt only 20 mm of rain. In this dry period, the average soil moisture of T2 plot (11.0 ± 0.5%) was significantly (p< 0.001) higher than in T4 (9.4 ± 0.5%). There were no differences in the average soil electrical conductivities (CE_1:2) of the plots (15.1-15.6 dS m^-1).

There were no significant differences between the fresh shoot biomass between the two generations of each lineage (Figure 1). However, on average, BTH2-f4 plants showed significantly (p< 0.001) larger shoots (201.2 ± 17.1 g) than BTH1 plants (f3= 104.0 ± 8.9 g; f4= 142.6 ± 12.1 g). No differences were observed in the global averages of individual fresh shoot biomass between the plots T4 (164.7 ± 8.3 g) and T2 (154.3 ± 12.9 g). Both lineages of S. neei can thrive under low volume irrigation with saline effluent.