Produção de jambu cultivado sob estresse salino em sistema hidropônico com diferentes intervalos de aeração

Abstract

Jambu (Acmella oleracea) is an unconventional vegetable, but widely used in the north of the country. As it is a regional culture, its commercial exploitation is still limited. Considering the potential for exploitation of jambu, the present study aimed to evaluate the cultivation and production of jambu in a hydroponic system, using nutrient solutions prepared with different levels of brackish water and with two times of aeration. The treatments were installed in a 2 × factorial scheme 6, with 5 replications, totaling 60 plots. The effects of two aeration intervals were observed: 0.25 and 24 h, associated with six levels of electrical conductivity of the nutrient solution (ECsol): 1.5; 2.2; 3.2; 4.3; 7.6; 9.8 dS m-1. During the cycle, weekly biometric estimates were made. At 35 days after transplanting, growth variables and leaf area were determined. In addition to the biometric variables, water consumption is evaluated by reading the volume evapotranspired by the crop every 4 days. The biometric estimates showed that there was a significant effect for the interaction between salinity and evaluation time, and it was possible to observe that jambu tends to be moderately tolerant to salinity and tolerant to the low frequency of aeration of the nutrient solution The variables plant height and the Water consumption showed a significant difference only for the isolated effect of salinity, with a decrease of approximately 2.6 and 8.6% per unit increment of salinity, respectively. In addition, salinity altered all growth variables collected at 35 DAT, with emphasis on shoot fresh mass and stem fresh mass, which showed reductions of 7.16 and 7.41%, respectively, per unit increment of salinity of the nutrient solution. Jambu was moderately tolerant to salinity and required 24 hours of aeration. Thus, the hydroponic cultivation of jambu was technically feasible without loss of quality.