ORIGINAL RESEARCH
The Impact of Advanced Static Magnetic Units
on Water Properties and the Performance
of Aeroponic and NFT Systems for Lettuce
More details
Hide details
1
Irrigation and Drainage Department, Agriculture Engineering Research Institute, Giza, Egypt
2
Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
3
Vegetables Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
4
Botany Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt
Submission date: 2019-08-16
Final revision date: 2019-09-08
Acceptance date: 2019-09-15
Online publication date: 2020-03-03
Publication date: 2020-04-21
Corresponding author
Wessam El-Ssawy
Irrigation and Drainage Department, Agriculture Engineering Research Institute, Egypt
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2020;29(4):2641-2652
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The current study was conducted during two seasons, 2018 and 2019, to determine the optimal
coupling of hydroponic systems with magnetized water levels (MWLs) to improve irrigation
water characteristics, water productivity and lettuce production quality. Three hydroponic nutrient
film technique (NFT; tower aeroponic and pyramidal aeroponic) systems and three levels of magnetic
units (magnetized water level 1; MWL1 = 3800 gauss, level 2; MWL2 = 5250 gauss, level 3;
MWL3 = 6300 gauss, and regular water (RW) was represented as a control) were tested. There was
an increase in total dissolved solids (TDS) and a decrease in pH of water by increasing the magnetic
level over time during the irrigation period. Maximum contents of nitrogen (N; 72.8 ppm), phosphorus
(P; 223.3 ppm), and potassium (K; 425.0 ppm) were recorded in nutrient solution under irrigation
with MWL3. The increase in magnetic intensity resulted in lower water consumption in all hydroponic
systems compared to control. On the other hand, tower and pyramidal systems consumed less
water compared to the NFT system. Maximum water consumption (3719.7 and 4175.4 m3 ha‒1 for both
seasons, respectively) was observed in the NFT system under RW. Maximum water productivity was
recorded with the integration of NFT system + MWL3 (83.4 kg m‒3) in the first season and tower system
+ MWL3 (71.2 kg m‒3) in the second season. In addition, the highest leaf performance curves and
lettuce yield (414 g per head) and its quality (3.50, 0.46, and 7.40 mg L‒1 for N, P, and K contents) were
recorded with the integration of the NFT system + MWL3 compared to other treatments.