Spain: Cebas investigators manage savings of 25% in the lettuce cultivation

A study made by Cebas-Csic investigators, within the European project Veg-i-Trade, allows a better cultivation of lettuce with a reduction of 25% of the water consumption. The study shows that by using less water there's an increase in the useful life of the lettuce in the quick frozen range and reduced costs of cultivation by about 200 Euro per hectare.

The European project Veg-i-Trade, that studies the possible impact of globalization and the weather changes in food security of fruits and vegetables, coordinated by the Department of Food Security and Quality by the Gent University (Belgium) and counts on the participation of universities, investigation institutes, small, medium and big companies in ten countries, among which are members of the Superior Council for Scientific Investigations by Cebas-Cisc.

Cebas-Cisc investigated the influence of the irrigation levels in the quality and security of the cut lettuce of IV range, more precisely the romana and iceberg varieties. Also, since May 2010, there have been 23 international groups studying virus and bacterias like E.coli, microtoxines and plaguicides residues that can affect the products.

Considerable saving of water
The weather change can lead to a water shortage and a rise in temperatures. Knowing that more than 70% of the water is consumed by agriculture, one of the challenges to Mediterranean farmers is to reduce its use by efficient management of it. Over 3 years, investigators from Cebas carried out different tests in the experimental farm "Primaflor", one of the most important lettuce producers in Europe and member of the Veg-i-Trade project in Pulpí (Almería).

In the cultivation, they developed different watering techniques and results show that using 25% less water the useful life of the vegetable is widened, diminishing the spots around the edge and improving the micro-biologic quality. The opposite effect was observed when applying 25% or 50% more water.

There are several advantages shown by these results. First, they get a better lettuce and, in addition, it has a direct economic effect, due to the use of a significantly smaller amount of water. In a period of economic crisis, the reduction in production costs are vital for the viability of agricultural companies. The study showed that water usage optimization means a saving of about 200 Euro per hectare per year.

Source: Murcia