Water Footprint and Productivity of Lettuce with Non-conventional Water Resources

Author: Amit Biswas, Swarnali Duary, Aminul Islam and Shraddha Bhattacharjee

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Abstract

Climate change is a major global challenge in the 21st Century. The effects of climate change on water availability are well documented with projections indicating an increase in water stress due to decreasing fresh water availability, ultimately resulting in increasing non-conventional water reuse for agriculture. But, it is a great challenge to use non-conventional water resources as alternative to improve productivity with reduced water footprint by protecting human health, agriculture and environment. Hence, a field trial was carried out with lettuce plant under polycarbonate polyhouse from 1st October 2021 to 15th December 2021, with three different types of water i.e., a) Fresh Water (FW) b) Waste Water (WW) and c) Fish Pond Water (FPW) with the aim of reutilization of non-conventional water resources in an effective way. There were six pots for each water treatment having a surface radius of 11 cm and a height of 18 cm. The average temperature and relative humidity maintained during the experiment was around 26°C and 46%; respectively under polyhouse. After harvesting it was found that the weight of lettuce leaves of FW pot, FPW pot and WW pot was 161 gm, 214 gm and 310 gm; respectively and root length was of 12.5 cm, 14.5 cm and 17.1 cm; respectively. Water Productivity for FW, FPW and WW was found as 13, 26 and 39 mg/cc, respectively. Water footprints was 77, 38 and 26 cc/gm under FW, FPW and WW; respectively. Hence, the WW pot showed the highest water productivity (p<0.05) with least water footprint (p<0.05) followed by FPW and FW pot. Therefore, the WW irrigation showed the superiority in lettuce farming over other irrigation practices in this study.

Keywords

Fish Pond Water, Lettuce, Water footprint, Water productivity, Waste water

Conclusion

The present study compared the performance of non-conventional water resource application with fresh water for lettuce farming. The FPW and WW were taken as non-conventional water resources here. The following conclusions were drawn from this study: •The weight of lettuce leaves was found to be the highest for WW application (310 gm). •The no. of leaves was more under WW application (25 per pot) as compared to FW and FPW. •The root length was also the highest under WW application (17.10 cm). •The WP was estimated to be the highest under WW application (39 mg/cc). •The WF was the least under WW application (26 cc/gm) Therefore, this comparative study recommended WW over FW and FPW for lettuce farming. However, more researches on non-conventional water resources are required in future to validate this kind of finding for other agricultural crops in diverse environments.

References

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How to cite this article

Amit Biswas, Swarnali Duary, Aminul Islam and Shraddha Bhattacharjee (2023). Water Footprint and Productivity of Lettuce with Non-conventional Water Resources. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 15(4): 01-04.