Effects of NaCl and CaCl<sub>2</sub> as Eustress Factors on Growth, Yield, and Mineral Composition of Hydroponically Grown <em>Valerianella locusta</em>
Orfeas Voutsinos-Frantzis,
Ioannis Karavidas,
Dimitrios Petropoulos,
Georgios Zioviris,
Dimitrios Fortis,
Theodora Ntanasi,
Andreas Ropokis,
Anestis Karkanis,
Leo Sabatino,
Dimitrios Savvas,
Georgia Ntatsi
Affiliations
Orfeas Voutsinos-Frantzis
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Ioannis Karavidas
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios Petropoulos
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Georgios Zioviris
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Dimitrios Fortis
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Theodora Ntanasi
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Andreas Ropokis
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Anestis Karkanis
Department of Agriculture Crop Production and Rural Environment, University of Thessaly, 38446 Volos, Greece
Leo Sabatino
Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences (SAAF), University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Ed. 5, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Dimitrios Savvas
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Georgia Ntatsi
Laboratory of Vegetable Production, Department of Crop Science, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece
Corn salad (Valerianella locusta) is a popular winter salad, cultivated as an ingredient for ready-to-eat salads. The application of mild salinity stress (eustress) can increase the flavor and reduce the nitrate content of certain crops but, at the same time, a wrong choice of the eustress type and dose can negatively affect the overall productivity. In this research, the effects of different isosmotic salt solutions, corresponding to two different electrical conductivity (EC) levels, were investigated on the yield and mineral composition of hydroponically grown Valerianella locusta “Elixir”. Five nutrient solutions (NS) were compared, including a basic NS used as the control, and four saline NS were obtained by adding to the basic NS either NaCl or CaCl2 at two rates each, corresponding to two isosmotic salt levels at a low and high EC level. Corn salad proved moderately susceptible to long-term salinity stress, suffering growth losses at both low and high EC levels of saline solution, except from the low NaCl treatment. Hence, it appears that mild salinity stress induced by NaCl could be employed as an eustress solution and corn salad could be cultivated with low-quality irrigation water (20 mM NaCl) in hydroponic systems.
