EXPERIMENTAL STRUCTURE FOR EVALUATION OF BRACKISH WATER USE IN LETTUCE HYDROPONIC PRODUCTION

1 ABSTRACT Despite the usual utilization of hydroponic systems in agricultural research, such management systems do not always use the same techniques commercially feasible, leading to few pragmatic results for farmers. This is an important observation because in Brazil the majority of hydroponic vegetable production uses the nutrient film technique (NFT). Therefore, research must be carried out in NFT systems to find out its contribution on horticulture and environmental protection studies. The salt tolerance of plants may be greater in hydroponics systems than it turns out to be under conventional soil-based systems. The possibility of use of brackish water in soilless cultivations can be seen as a new perspective on Brazilian semi-arid agriculture, besides contributing to the improvement of the agricultural environment safety. In order to test the hypothesis of a positive effect of high irrigation frequency of hydroponic system on the salt tolerance of plants, a structure with 40 experimental units was constructed . Each experiment unit was designed to represent a hydroponic NFT system. This paper presents and describes the experimental structure built. Preliminary findings from lettuce cultivation suggest that the experimental structure is feasible for scientific investigations.