Effect of mineral nutrition on green hydroponic maize forage production
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15517/rac.v41i2.31301Keywords:
Hydro-forage, maize, animal nutrition, nutritive valueAbstract
Hydroponic green forage (FVH) consists of specialized production of vegetal biomass from initial seedling growth, which represents an alternative to conventional grazing systems for animal feeding. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of mineral nutrition applied by a nutrient solution on yield and mineral composition of maize FVH. Two nutrient concentration treatments were applied: High nutrition (Na) and Low nutrition (Nb), and a control treatment with water (Te). The study was conducted in 2015, in a greenhouse located in the Agricultural Experiment Station Fabio Baudrit Moreno (EEAFBM), Alajuela, Costa Rica. Seed was selected and prepared by disinfection, imbibition and aeration. It was then pre-germinated for 3 days in a wet chamber in plastic trays at a density of 3 kg.m-2. Plastic trays were then moved to a production greenhouse in which they remained for 11 days until harvest. Application of nutrient solution had no significant effect (p>0.05) on fresh weight (PF), dry matter (DM) production, conversion efficiency (EC) and mineral composition of maize FVH. For all treatments (Na, Nb and Te), mean values of PF (15.28 kg.m-2), EC (5.08 kg.kg-1), height (27.7 cm) and mineral composition of maize FVH, presented optimum values compared to what is reported by other authors. The results suggest that under conditions similar to this study, the use of nutrient solutions for FVH production is not necessary.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Agronomía Costarricense
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The authors retain the copyright to their work and grant written authorization to the Revista Agronomía Costarricense to publish and distribute the manuscript. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) International License.
In addition, authors may include the published version of their manuscript in an institutional repository or other medium, provided they indicate that the work was published in the Revista Agronomía Costarricense.
The main author (corresponding author) must declare in writing that the manuscript is original, has not been previously published elsewhere, and has been authorized by the institution where the research was conducted.
