Effect of fertigation using fish production wastewater on Pelargonium x zonale growth and nutrient content

Marcos Álvarez-García, Miguel Urrestarazu, José Luis Guil-Guerrero and Silvia Jiménez-Becker

Agricultural Water Management, 2019, vol. 223, issue C, -

Abstract: Aquaculture effluent can supply certain plant nutrients in adequate amounts. However, the nutrients present in the fish waste solution are not balanced. Mixing this effluent in an independent unit with a hydroponic nutrient solution can help to optimize conditions for the plants and minimize such drawbacks. The objective of this work was to assess the crop production and the nutritional responses of Pelargonium zonale fertigated with different percentages of fish wastewater. Five treatments were performed: 100NS, 75NS + 25AS, 50NS + 50AS, 25NS + 75AS and 100AS, where AS is the fish wastewater and NS a hydroponic nutrient solution. The species used to provide the fish waste solution was tilapia nilotica (Oreochromis niloticus). The results of this assay show that: i) fish wastewater can be utilized for the fertigation of Pelargonium zonale (a short-cycle crop) as there are no differences in the leaf, stem-petiole and flower dry matter, leaf water content, leaf area, plant height and leaf color compared to Pelargonium zonale fertigated with a chemical fertilizer; ii) the application of 75NS + 25AS accelerated flowers, shoots and leaves production. A higher percentage of fish waste solution mixed with the applied nutrient solution significantly reduces the K concentration in the nutrient solution and in the leaf; however, tilapia waste solution supplies adequate N, P and Ca nutrients to the pelargonium plants. Therefore, the reuse of fish waste solution can reduce the application rate of some inorganic fertilizers, which in turn can reduce the cost of fertilizers while preventing environmental pollution.

Keywords: Potassium; Fertilizer use efficiency; Double recirculation aquaponic system; Tilapia; Ornamental plants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378377419307814
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:223:y:2019:i:c:50

DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2019.105726

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Water Management is currently edited by B.E. Clothier, W. Dierickx, J. Oster and D. Wichelns

More articles in Agricultural Water Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().