Comparison of some chemical and non-chemical treatments to disinfect a recirculating nutrient solution

Closed hydroponic growing systems have a better water use efficiency (WUE) and a lower use of fertilizers, but a larger risk of spreading soil-borne pathogens all over the crop compared to open systems. In climates or regions where availability of water is limited closed systems should be preferred above open systems but the risk of spreading soil-borne pathogens should be minimized. Disinfection of the nutrient solution is a valuable method, but it often demands high investments. A desk study was made to compare the performance of some chemical and non-chemical treatments. For larger companies (>2 ha) heat treatment and UV radiation are still the best options. For smaller companies

Disease management in soilless culture systems

EU legislation, laid down in the Water Framework Directive, demands to minimize emissions of nitrogen, phosphate and crop protection products to achieve an excellent chemical and ecological quality in 2015. The aim is to force growers to a better water and disease management. Supply water of excellent chemical quality will have to be recirculated as long as possible, for which adequate disinfection equipment have to be used. Several sources of water are used as supply water. Rainwater is chemically best, followed by reverse osmosis water. However, the latter is rather expensive. Tap water and surface water often have a too high salinity, while well water may vary dramatically from place to place. Rainwater and surface water are potential risk factors for importing soil-borne pathogens. Disinfection of the recirculating nutrient solution can be done adequately by heat treatment and UV radiation. Membrane filtration performs well, but is mostly too costly. Chemical treatments as sodium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide and copper silver ionization may partly solve the pathogen problem, but introduce a potential accumulation of other elements in closed systems. Hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide and sodium hypochlorite perform better to clean pipe work instead of soil-borne pathogens

Emissions of plant protection products from glasshouses to surface water in The Netherlands

Momenteel wordt een vast percentage van 0.1% gebruikt voor de emissie van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen vanuit kassen naar het oppervlaktewater. Metingsgegevens van waterschappen wijzen erop dat de emissie van gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden naar het oppervlaktewater hoger zijn dan aangenomen wordt in de toelatingsprocedure. Dit rapport onderzoekt of nieuwe benaderingen nodig zijn. De onderzoeksresultaten duiden er op dat de werkelijke emissie sterk verschilt tussen verschillende gewassen, teeltsystemen en toedieningswijzen. Dit zou in de evaluatie van de emissie meegenomen moeten worden

Disease suppressive soilless culture systems; characterisation of its microflora

The trend in glasshouse horticulture has always been to start culture systems as aseptic as possible. However, several root diseases still cause problems under these conditions. The present paper shows the importance of the microflora to suppress Pythium aphanidermatum, a fungal root pathogen which is a serious threat in cucumber. Introduced single antagonists as well as the indigenous microflora suppressed pythium root and crown rot. Pseudomonas fluorescens, Streptomyces griseoviridis, Pythium oligandrum, and 2 isolates of Trichoderma harzianum reduced the disease occurrence by 60 ␘r more in several, but not all, of the experiments. The indigenous microflora showed a very constant disease suppression of 50 to 100 &Eth;This was tested in experiments where P. aphanidermatum was added to sterilised and non-sterilised rockwool, and to sterilised rockwool that had been recolonised with the original microflora. Suppressiveness correlated with the number of filamentous actinomycetes present in the nutrient solution in the rockwool slabs. If a beneficial microflora is present in the cropping system, it should not be disturbed or eradicated by treatments such as disinfection of the recirculated nutrient solution. Therefore, the effects of different disinfection procedures on the composition of the microflora were compared. Numbers of filamentous actinomycetes in the nutrient solution in the tank after the disinfection treatment were highest without disinfection, intermediate after slow filtration, and lowest after UV treatment. Numbers of actinomycetes in the slabs, i.e. around the roots, were not distinctly different between the treatments. The implication of potential shifts in the microbial populations due to certain treatments for the disease development is not known. Increased knowledge on the beneficial microflora and the treatments that influence the composition of such a microflora, will stimulate the exploitation of microbially balanced and optimised soilless culture systems

Strategies to manage chemical water quality related problems in closed hydroponic systems

In the Netherlands since the late nineties reuse of drainage water is obligatory for all soil less growing systems, to reduce the environmental pollution. However, this strategy has some important bottlenecks. Apart from technical and phytopathological aspects, accumulation of Na, Cl or other residual ions could be a problem. Accumula-tion will occur if the uptake rates are lower than the concentrations in the input. Recently a database was established with the maximum acceptable concentrations in the root environment and water sources, for a number of crops. In all cases Na showed to be the bottleneck element. A high tolerance for Na not necessarily means a high uptake rate for this ion, as was found for sweet pepper. Water sources differ highly in Na concentrations. In general, for completely closed growing systems only rainwater or desalinated water is suitable. For some crops (rose, chrysanthemum, sweet pepper) the natural background concentrations of Na in rainwater is sometimes even higher than the uptake rate. Accumulation above the maximum acceptable concentrations inevitably should be followed by discharge of a fraction of the nutrient solution to prevent yield reduction or decline in produce quality. This will result in lower water and nutrient use efficiencies than required. However, the water and nutrient losses depend highly on water management strategies accomplished by the grower. Smart strategies were developed for discharge of drainage water as low as possible for N and P. These are based on the uptake dynamics of Na and Cl and minimal required N and P levels observed with different crops. These strategies have been tested for rose and resulted in significant reduction in the nutrient losses