HYDROPONIC PRODUCTION OF THE SEA ASPARAGUS Salicornia neei WITH RECIRCULATING SALINE WATER FROM A MARINE FISH CULTURE

César S. B. Costa*, Glauce S. Oliveira
 
Instituto de Oceanografia,
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande-FURG,
96203-900 Rio Grande, RS, Brazil
docosta@furg.br
 

The species of the genus Salicornia (Amaranthaceae) showed great productive potential when irrigated with saline water and marine aquaculture effluents. Their succulent shoots are sold as 'Samphire' or 'Sea asparagus' and have high nutritional quality and chemical characteristics for human and animal diets, biofuel production and the pharmaceutical industry. In Brazil, a breeding program generated a pure lineage of the native Salicornia neei Lag. denominated BTH2. The aims of this study was to quantify the growth and biomass production of the lineage BHT2 of S. neei in a nutrient film technique (NFT) bench irrigated with recirculating saline water from fattening tanks of a culture of cobia (Rachycentron canadum), marine fish, in Rio Grande (RS, Brazil).

The NFT was set up on a commercial hydroponic bench, accommodating a total of 120 plants, which received saline water from a water tank containing 450 L, with a flow of 385 L/hour and a daily water renewal rate of 20.5 times. The saline water in the tank was replaced once a week and EC ranged between 42-48 dS/m. The water concentrations of nitrate, ammonium and phosphate ranged between 21.9-34.9 mg NO3-N L-1, 0.1-0.3 mg NH4-N L-1 and 0.6-7.2 mg PO4-P L-1, respectively. S. neei plants are perennials and 64 days after being established in the NFT bench each shoot was cut to 4 cm above ground to evaluate plant sprouting and biomass production.

On average S. neei shoots originated from sprouts (88 days after initial cutting) showed a shoot height of 26.4 cm, 5.4 branches per shoot with a maximum branch length of 16.5 cm and a fresh shoot biomass of 36.2 g (Figure 1). BTH2 plants surpassed a commercial shoot height of 10 cm adopted internationally for gourmet species of sea asparagus. The potential production of fresh biomass of S. neei shoots of lineage BHT2 was from 2.6 kg/m²/year.