Correlation between pH, Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Temperature of the Nutrient Solution and the Growth of Lettuce in Hydroponic System

Abstract

Hydroponics technique will become an important and a crucial urban farming in Malaysia due to rapid urbanization which led to the competition of food supplies, nutrition and food security in the population. Hence, the hydroponics farming technique is used to supply vegetables and fruits to the urban population due to its advantages that can be grown in limited space and grow faster. In hydroponics, the nutrient solution is the most essential factors that affect the growth of the plants as it contains all the minerals needed by the plant to grow. pH, electrical conductivity (EC) and the temperature of the nutrient solution are the parameters that must be controlled as these parameters affect the uptake of the nutrient in the root zone area for producing good quality of crops, high yielding and ensure the growth of the plants. Based on the review of other journals, articles and book, this paper proposed to conduct an experiment to investigate the correlation between the nutrient solution parameters (pH, EC and temperature) and plant growth (height) by using linear regression analysis after the data of the pH, EC and temperature of the nutrient solution and the measurement of the height of the lettuce plants for the growing period of 21 days are collected. From this correlation, the optimum values of the pH, EC and temperature of the nutrient can be obtained and used to develop a control system for the hydroponic system to maintain these parameters at optimum level for the sustainability of the plants.