Articles
From water use efficiency to water footprint in greenhouse roses
Article number
1409_33
Pages
249 – 256
Language
English
Abstract
Water use efficiency (WUE) defines a unit of biomass produced per unit of water used (evapotranspired) or applied.
Intensively fertigated greenhouse roses growing in soilless substrates are reported to have WUE of 0.7 to 2.3 g of dry weight L‑1 of water applied.
The sustainability concept of water footprint (WF) provides a more comprehensive value of direct and indirect water consumed and polluted by source, used to produce a crop or harvested product.
The overall value of WF includes three components: blue, green and gray.
WFblue is the volume of surface/groundwater applied to the crop (comparable to WUE); WFgreen refers to the consumption of rainwater stored in the soil; WFgray is the freshwater volume that would be required to dilute a load of agrichemical pollutant(s) in drainage/runoff effluents to local water quality standards.
The heavy use of water and fertilizers in soilless-grown greenhouse cut flower rose crops led to the hypothesis that they would have higher WF values compared to other horticultural crops.
A recent modeling approach applied to soil-grown roses produced in Kenya reported WF values of 7 to 13 L per single rose cut stem, distributed as 22% WFgreen, 45% WFblue and 34% WFgray. Using a data set from a nitrogen (N) and water mass balance study in substrate-grown roses, growing in a greenhouse in California, this study validated the WF values modeled for the Kenya rose-growing region.
The WF values from the experimental California roses ranged from 7.7 to 26 L stem‑1 across the evaluated N and irrigation treatments when using a conservative 20% N pollution factor for the calculation of the WFgray component.
Across these treatments, the WF had an average distribution of 28% WFblue and 72% WFgray. A full remediation of the N load in the drainage effluents from these soilless-grown California roses would significantly raise the total WF to a range of 24 to 110 L stem‑1 across the evaluated treatments, and the average WFgray contribution to 92%. On a comparative fresh weight basis, the averaged WF of 0.37 L g‑1 and of 0.48 L g‑1 in cut rose flower stems from Kenya and California, respectively, fall in between the global WF averages for vegetable (0.3 L g‑1) and fruit (1.0 L g‑1) crops.
Intensively fertigated greenhouse roses growing in soilless substrates are reported to have WUE of 0.7 to 2.3 g of dry weight L‑1 of water applied.
The sustainability concept of water footprint (WF) provides a more comprehensive value of direct and indirect water consumed and polluted by source, used to produce a crop or harvested product.
The overall value of WF includes three components: blue, green and gray.
WFblue is the volume of surface/groundwater applied to the crop (comparable to WUE); WFgreen refers to the consumption of rainwater stored in the soil; WFgray is the freshwater volume that would be required to dilute a load of agrichemical pollutant(s) in drainage/runoff effluents to local water quality standards.
The heavy use of water and fertilizers in soilless-grown greenhouse cut flower rose crops led to the hypothesis that they would have higher WF values compared to other horticultural crops.
A recent modeling approach applied to soil-grown roses produced in Kenya reported WF values of 7 to 13 L per single rose cut stem, distributed as 22% WFgreen, 45% WFblue and 34% WFgray. Using a data set from a nitrogen (N) and water mass balance study in substrate-grown roses, growing in a greenhouse in California, this study validated the WF values modeled for the Kenya rose-growing region.
The WF values from the experimental California roses ranged from 7.7 to 26 L stem‑1 across the evaluated N and irrigation treatments when using a conservative 20% N pollution factor for the calculation of the WFgray component.
Across these treatments, the WF had an average distribution of 28% WFblue and 72% WFgray. A full remediation of the N load in the drainage effluents from these soilless-grown California roses would significantly raise the total WF to a range of 24 to 110 L stem‑1 across the evaluated treatments, and the average WFgray contribution to 92%. On a comparative fresh weight basis, the averaged WF of 0.37 L g‑1 and of 0.48 L g‑1 in cut rose flower stems from Kenya and California, respectively, fall in between the global WF averages for vegetable (0.3 L g‑1) and fruit (1.0 L g‑1) crops.
Authors
R.I. Cabrera
Keywords
cut flowers, fertigation, irrigation, pollution, water footprint, water use efficiency
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