Sustainable Raft Based Hydroponic System for Growing Spinach and Coriander

Abstract

According to the existing problems of low efficiency and hard labor, intellectualized agricultural production system is designed. Agricultural production is moved toward a road to soilless agriculture by developing exact crop model. Especially Green leafy vegetables consumption has been associated with decreased risk of persistent metabolic diseases. Growing green leafy vegetables hydroponically can be an option of sustainable food production in non-agricultural regions of the world. We report a use of a simple; laboratory-scale raft based hydroponic culture system for growing Spinach and Coriander in Central Research Lab, MGMIHS Navi Mumbai. In this system the plants are grown on polystyrene boards (rafts) that float on top of water. Plants sit in 2″ (5.1 cm) net pots supported by the white polystyrene covers or rafts. Grow-beds are filled with enough water to reach the bottom of the net pots and lets plant roots grow down into the water to take up nutrients. It is noted that this leaves about 5 cm of air space between the raft and the surface of the water. Water quality, pH, conductivity should be tested twice a week. Also levels of toxicants such as ammonia and nitrite should be monitored to ensure they are declining as bio-filter bacteria grow. The results show that both plants mature within 4–5 weeks. Plants had different morphological value i.e. the height of the plants was larger than the soil grown spinach and coriander plant at optimum condition. From the leaves of hydroponically grown plants, extract was made which was quantified for the presence of iron with spinach having 0.5 gm/100 gm and coriander having 0.4 gm/100 gm and chlorophyll content of spinach (11.5 ± 0.4 ug mg-DW⁻¹) and coriander (10.4 ± 0.4 ug mg-DW⁻¹). We present an optimized raft based hydroponic culture system that can be quickly and cheaply setup. This system produces plants with similar growth kinetics to soil-grown plants. This system is critical and multi dollar global business for climatically challenged regions. This system has vast application prospect.