Soilless Cultivation of Edible Plants for Phytoremediation

Abstract: Food security and eutrophication are two issues proven to have severe impacts on both humanity and the environment. This study suggests improving the local food security by utilizing phosphorus and nitrogen, available in severe eutrophic small lakes, in local food production, thus turning eutrophication from a problem into a resource. The study theoretically experiments the possibility of using eutrophic water in a greenhouse, where hydroponics is used as a cultivation method. The eutrophic water is pumped from the lake into the greenhouse, and then to the hydroponic system, which is expected to remediate the water, returning clean water to the lake. The objective of this process is to phytoremediate eutrophic water and simultaneously, produce edible commercial plants. Finding the best matching lake and plant nitrogen to phosphorus (N:P) ratio, is of key importance to optimize the remediation process. Based on data from a literature review, edible plants N:P ratios are found lower than typical lake N:P ratios, suggesting that, in some cases, edible plants in the hydroponic system would require additional nutrients to grow optimally. Finding the best matching lake and plant N:P ratio is thought to optimize the remediation process. Matching the lake and plant N:P ratio was conducted in Python.