Remediated marine sediment as growing medium for lettuce production: assessment of agronomic performance and food safety in a pilot experiment

Abstract

BACKGROUND The use of reclaimed dredged sediments as growing media may offer a profitable alternative to their disposal as a waste and at the same time meets the need of peat‐substitute substrates in horticulture. When sediments are reused to cultivate food crops, issues related to human health rise due to potential accumulation of contaminants in the product. This pilot study aimed at verifying the suitability of a reclaimed dredged port sediment, used pure or mixed with peat, as a growing medium for lettuce cultivation. RESULTS The pure sediment caused a reduction in crop yield, probably due to its unsuitable physical properties, whereas the mixture sediment–peat and pure peat resulted in the same yield. Although the sediment contained potentially phytotoxic heavy metals and some organic pollutants, no symptoms of plant toxicity were noted. Besides, no organic contaminants were detected in lettuce heads, and heavy metals amounts were not hazardous for consumers. Conversely, plants grown in the sediment were particularly rich in minerals like Ca, Mg and Fe, and showed higher concentrations of organic acids and antioxidants. CONCLUSION The use of the sediment as a growing medium for lettuce was shown to be safe for both inorganic and organic contaminants. Nevertheless, considering crop yield results, the mixture of the sediment with other materials is recommended in order to produce a substrate with more suitable physicochemical properties for vegetable cultivation. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry

Purple Queen® fruits of Punica granatum L.: Nutraceutical properties and unconventional growing substrates

“…Whole fruits, arils and peel total weight followed a common trend with PQ-0 > PQ-50 > PQ-100 in both the years. These findings clearly indicate that the physical and chemical composition of the sediments (Table 1), different from peat, induced plant stress resulting in a lower plant productivity as previously highlighted [12,18].…”

“…To meet sustainability criteria in the plant nursery industry, attention is currently focused on the reutilization of waste-derived substrates. Among these, dredged remediated sediments have already been proposed as soilless growing media for the cultivation of ornamental and food crops [12,13].…”

Application of LCA Methodology to the Production of Strawberry on Substrates with Peat and Sediments from Ports

“…Since the GM characteristics could affect the yield crop, therefore, to the main function of the system analyzed, in this case, 1 kg of fruit produced at the farm has been selected as the FU [22]. The adequacy of the FU selected is based on previous works developed by the same research group, where it was reported that the GM used did not affect the fruit quality and/or composition [23,24]. Therefore, the kg of fruits represents an equivalent function in all the alternative systems considered (Figure 1).…”

“…To model the sediment extraction phase (Table 3), the data provided by Kemp [26] were used. The AGRIPORT and HORTISED LIFE projects and bibliographic data were used to include the date of phytoremediation and landfarming [9,24]. The data extraction of peat is provided by Ecoinvent and quantifies the directly affected area, the electricity requirements and the diesel used for the mining operation and the extraction.…”

Effect of Phytoremediated Port Sediment as an Agricultural Medium for Pomegranate Cultivation: Mobility of Contaminants in the Plant

“…In these cases, the dredged sediment could be considered a resource rather than a residue able to reuse and revalorise from the circular economy perspective [7]. Thus, recent multidisciplinary scientific studies have reported, demonstrated and confirmed the viability of obtaining a new safe substrate from the treated dredged sediments related to the amounts of contaminants present in it [6,[8][9][10].…”