Journal of Environmental Management 127 (2013) 162e165

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Journal of Environmental Management

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Use of hydroponics culture to assess nutrient supply by treated

wastewater
Maria Adrover, Gabriel Moy, Jaume Vadell*
Department of Biology, University of Balearic Islands, 07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 30 September 2009
Received in revised form
22 February 2013
Accepted 20 April 2013
Available online 21 May 2013

The use of treated wastewater for irrigation is increasing, especially in those areas where water resources
are limited. Treated wastewaters contain nutrients that are useful for plant growth and help to reduce
fertilizers needs. Nutrient content of these waters depends on the treatment system. Nutrient supply by a
treated wastewater from a conventional treatment plant (CWW) and a lagooned wastewater from the
campus of the University of Balearic Islands (LWW) was tested in an experiment in hydroponics conditions. Half-strength Hoagland nutrient solution (HNS) was used as a control. Barley (Hordeum vulgare
L.) seedlings were grown in 4 L containers lled with the three types of water. Four weeks after planting,
barley was harvested and root and shoot biomass was measured. N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na and Fe contents were
determined in both tissues and heavy metal concentrations were analysed in shoots. N, P and K concentrations were lower in LWW than in CWW, while HNS had the highest nutrient concentration. Dry
weight barley production was reduced in CWW and LWW treatments to 49% and 17%, respectively,
comparing to HNS. However, to a lesser extent, reduction was found in shoot and root N content. Treated
wastewater increased Na content in shoots and roots of barley and Ca and Cr content in shoots. However,
heavy metals content was lower than toxic levels in all the cases. Although treated wastewater is an
interesting water resource, additional fertilization is needed to maintain a high productivity in barley
seedlings.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Barley
Treated wastewater
Hydroponics
Mineral content
Heavy metals

1. Introduction
The reuse of treated wastewater for crop irrigation has been
widely recommended for their environmental benets, especially
in those areas with problems of water shortage (Pereira et al., 2002;
Qadir et al., 2007).
Chemical composition of treated wastewaters depends on their
origin and the treatment received. Efuents from non-industrial
municipalities that have received at least secondary treatment
have generally low concentrations of heavy metals, which do not
cause any adverse effects on plant growth and public health (Crook,
1998). However, they contain suspended and dissolved organic and
inorganic solids (Pereira et al., 2002). Conventional treatment
plants have higher removal efciency of biological oxygen demand
(BOD) but a lower removal efciency of total nitrogen and total
phosphorus than lagooned treatment plants (Muga and Mihelcic,
2007).
Several authors reported that treated wastewaters can be used
as a fertilizer for wheat, maize and barley in eld conditions

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 34 971173167; fax: 34 971173184.

E-mail address: jaume.vadell@uib.es (J. Vadell).
0301-4797/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.04.044

(Hussain et al., 1996; Vazquez-Montiel et al., 1996; Rusan et al.,

2007). However, soil fertility should be taken into account.
Hydroponic cultures have been widely used in studies of plant
nutrition (Alam et al., 2001; Crowley et al., 2002) because the root
medium is homogeneous (Le Bot et al., 1998) and deciencies and
toxicities are more evident than in soil cultures (Ma et al., 1997). On
the other hand, they can be useful for nutrient removal from
wastewaters (Ghaly et al., 2005; Vaillant et al., 2003). Snow and
Ghaly (2008) showed that hydroponically grown barley was able
to reduce signicantly the pollution load of aquaculture wastewater. Moreover, the reuse of treated wastewaters in hydroponic
cultures to produce commercially valuable plants has been previously evaluated (Rababah and Ashbolt, 2000; Oyama et al., 2005).
Recently, treated wastewater has also been considered a feasible
source of water to produce barley fodder under hydroponic system
(Al Ajmi et al., 2009; Al-Karaki, 2011).
A hydroponic culture experiment was established in order to
compare the growth response and mineral nutrient status of barley
supplied with two different treated wastewaters. The effect of
treated wastewaters on heavy metal accumulation was also evaluated. This experiment complements a larger research to study the
effects of these two types of treated wastewater on three common
Mediterranean soil types sown with barley (Adrover et al., 2012).

M. Adrover et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 127 (2013) 162e165

2. Material and methods

Seeds of barley (Hordeum vulgare L. cv. County) were sown in
germination cells lled with vermiculite and kept in a germination
chamber untill emergence. Once germinated were watered with
half-strength Hoagland nutrient solution.
One-week seedlings were transplanted to 4 L polyethylene
containers lled with three continuously-aerated types of water:
half-strength Hoagland nutrient solution (HNS; Hoagland and
Arnon, 1950), treated municipal wastewater from a conventional
treatment plant (CWW) and treated municipal wastewater from
the lagoon system (LWW). The conventional wastewater treatment
plant works with the activated sludge system and has a capacity of
5000 equivalent inhabitants with a daily ow of 1000 m3. The
water for the experiment was collected from the secondary settling
tank. The lagooned wastewater came from a wastewater stabilization pound located at the campus of the University of Balearic
Islands, with a capacity of 225 equivalent inhabitants and a daily
ow of 50 m3, which was thoroughly described by AmengualMorro et al. (2012). The water for this experiment was collected
from the second maturation pond. Water properties are shown in
Table 1. Five seedlings were planted in each container and a set of
four containers was used for each treatment. Previously, roots were
thoroughly washed with distilled water. Seedlinds were supported
with a polystyrene disc with the same diameter of the container.
These discs also covered the containers to exclude light from the
solution and root systems. After two weeks from the transplanting,
two plants were removed in each container.
Weekly, both treated wastewaters (CWW and LWW) were
collected from the treatment plants, nutrient solution (HNS) was
prepared and water of the hydroponic culture was changed for the
three treatments. Distilled water was added if the volume of the
solution decreased during the week, in order to keep the containers
full without adding nutrients.
Plants were grown in a greenhouse. The experiment was
repeated twice. In the rst time (culture 1), barley seedlings were
transplanted on 24th of March of 2006. The repetition of the
experiment (culture 2) started on 12th of April of 2006.
Barley plants were harvested after four weeks in both hydroponic
cultures. Roots and shoots were separated. Roots were thoroughly
washed with distilled water. Plant material was dried in an oven at
60  C for three days and weighed to measure crop production. Plant
samples were milled to <1 mm. Contents of N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na and Fe

in shoots and roots in addition to contents of Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb
and Zn in shoots were measured. N was analysed by the Kjeldahl
method (Bremmer and Mulvaney, 1982). To determine the levels of
other elements, 1 g of the sample was dry ashed at 550  C for 3 h and
dissolved in 5 ml of 25% nitric acid and 50 ml of double distilled
water. After mixing thoroughly and standing for approximately
30 min, the supernatant was ltered through 0.45 mm and analyzed
with an inductively coupled plasma spectrophotometer.
Crop production and mineral content were analysed by two-way
ANOVA, with water treatment and repetition (culture 1 and 2) as
main factors. Means were separated by Tukeys test (p < 0.05) for
comparisons. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 15.0.
3. Results
Both treated wastewaters (CWW and LWW) had low inorganic
N contents compared to HNS, which were 15% and 3%, respectively.
Ammonia was the predominant form of N in treated wastewaters,
in contrast to HNS, where most of N was in nitrate form. Treated
wastewaters had also a lower content in P and K than HNS. Concentrations of these two elements were higher in CWW than in
LWW. Ca and Mg concentration were lower in treated wastewaters
than in HNS but there were less strong differences than in the case
of N, P and K. In contrast, Na concentration was higher in CWW,
followed by LWW, than in HNS, where the concentration of this
element was unappreciable. Another differential characteristic of
treated wastewaters, in comparison with HNS, was the presence of
suspended solids, which was higher in lagooned wastewater.
Moreover, pH was very much higher in treated wastewater,
reaching values upper to 9 in LWW (Table 1).
The treatment with CWW produced a 57% of shoots and a 51% of
roots in culture 1 and a 39% of shoots and a 55% of roots in the
culture 2, comparing to HNS. The production of the treatment with
LWW was still lower, 22% of shoots and 26% of roots in culture 1 and
11% of shoots and 17% of roots in culture 2, comparing to the
treatment with HNS (Fig. 1). The crop production was statistically
different in the three water treatments but not statistically significant differences were found between both cultures (Table 2).
Mineral content in shoots was statistically signicantly different
(p < 0.05) between the three water treatments, although no differences were found between both cultures, except for N and Mg.
Shoots of barley grown in HNS had higher N, K and Fe content and
lower Ca and Na content than those of barley grown in both treated
20

Table 1
Chemical composition of irrigation water. Mean values and range between brackets.

18

HNS

CWW

LWW

16

1.15
6.2
0
113
14
31.0
197
60
28
0
0.5
0.01
0.25
0.03
bdl

1.54 (1.50e1.60)
8.0 (7.9e8.1)
46 (28e64)
3 (0.2e10)
16 (12e18)
2.4 (1.9e2.8)
16 (15e18)
39 (31e50)
12 (11e12)
90 (85e96)
bdl
bdl
bdl
bdl
bdl

1.00 (0.91e1.11)
9.3 (8.9e9.6)
115 (82e140)
0.2 (0.0e0.6)
3 (1e6)
0.9 (0.7e1.2)
12 (11e13)
24 (21e29)
13 (12e14)
57 (53e64)
bdl
bdl
bdl
bdl
bdl

14

HNS, Hoagland nutrient solution; CWW, treated wastewater from a conventional

treatment plant; LWW, treated wastewater from a lagoon; EC, electrical conductivity; SS, suspended solids; bdl, below detection limit. Detection limit: Fe,
0.001 mg l1; Cu, 0.0004 mg l1; Mn, 0.018 mg l1; Zn, 0.001 mg l1; Cd,
0.0006 mg l1; Cr, 0.01 mg l1; Ni, 0.005 mg l1; Pb, 0.009 mg l1.

Dry weight (g)

EC 25  C (dS m1)
pH
SS (mg l1)
1
NeNO
3 (mg l )
1
NeNH
4 (mg l )
Total P (mg l1)
K (mg l1)
Ca (mg l1)
Mg (mg l1)
Na (mg l1)
Fe (mg l1)
Cu (mg l1)
Mn (mg l1)
Zn (mg l1)
Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, (mg l1)

163

Shoots
Roots

12

10

bc

8
6

bc

2
0
HNS 1

HNS 2

CWW 1

CWW 2

LWW 1

LWW 2

Fig. 1. Aboveground (shoots) and belowground (roots) biomass for each treatment in
the cultures 1 and 2 (HNS, Hoagland nutrient solution; CWW, treated wastewater from
a conventional treatment plant; LWW, treated wastewater from a lagoon). Error bars
represent the standard error of the total dry weight. Treatments with different letters
are statistically different according to the Tukey test at P < 0.05 for total biomass (roots
and shoots).

164

M. Adrover et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 127 (2013) 162e165

Table 2
Two-way ANOVA on crop production (CP), expressed as g container1, and mineral
content of barley shoots, expressed as g kg1, considering water treatment and
culture.
CP

Water treatment (W)

HNS
12.0a
41.1a
CWW 5.7b
24.4c
LWW 1.9c
31.4b
Sig.
<0.001 <0.001
Culture
1
2
Sig.

(C)
7.1
6.0
0.242

Interaction
W  C 0.609

28.9
35.7
0.001

0.002

Ca

Mg

Na

Fe

5.9ab
4.0b
8.1a
0.001

55.3a
29.3b
35.8b
<0.001

3.0c
5.2b
7.0a
<0.001

1.7b
1.7b
3.4a
<0.001

0.2b
8.7a
9.2a
<0.001

47.5a
43.0ab
30.3b
0.015

5.4
6.6
0.104

0.001

41.3
39.0
0.560

0.001

5.1
5.0
0.902

0.113

1.9
2.6
0.029

0.003

6.0
6.1
0.867

0.611

42.8
37.7
0.265

0.179

For water treatment, values followed by different letters in the same column are
statistically different (Tukey test, p < 0.05). HNS, Hoagland Nutrient Solution; CWW,
treated wastewater from a conventional treatment plant; LWW, treated wastewater
from a lagoon; Sig, signicance.

wastewaters (Table 2). Similar results were found in roots (Table 3).
Although production was higher in CWW treatment than in LWW
treatment (Fig. 1), a higher rate of N content was detected in the
shoots of barley treated with LWW, compared with CWW and
similar pattern was observed by P, Ca and Mg content (Table 2).
Signicant interactions were found between water treatment and
repetition for N, P, K and Mg in shoots and Mg in roots, indicating
signicantly different patterns of response in both cultures by the
different water treatment examined (Tables 2 and 3).
As for heavy metal contents, they were signicantly higher in
culture 2 than in culture 1, with the exception of Ni and Pb contents.
Plants grown with CWW and LWW had signicantly lower Cu and
Mn contents in their shoots than plants grown with HNS. In
contrast, Ni content was signicantly higher in shoots from the
treatments with CWW and LWW and similar results were found for
Cr content. No differences were found among treatments in Pb and
Zn contents. Signicant interactions between water treatment and
repetition were found only for Cd and Cr contents (Table 4).
4. Discussion
Half-strength Hoagland nutrient solution (HNS) is considered a
complete formulation of all required nutrients and is recommended
Table 3
Two-way ANOVA on crop production (CP), expressed as g container1, and mineral
content of barley roots, expressed as g kg1, considering water treatment and
culture.
P

Ca

Mg

Na

Fe

Water treatment (W)

HNS
3.2a
36.5a
CWW 1.7b
24.7c
LWW 0.7c
31.2b
Sig.
<0.001 <0.001

CP

6.7
4.8
5.7
0.064

42.1a
21.2b
21.4b
<0.001

2.8b
5.7a
3.3b
0.014

1.6b
2.2a
1.7ab
0.027

0.4c
11.6a
6.5b
<0.001

136.3ab
178.8a
61.0b
0.004

Culture
1
2
Sig.

(C)
2.1
1.7
0.093

29.8
31.8
0.181

5.1
6.4
0.043

24.7
31.8
0.087

3.3
4.6
0.111

1.5
2.1
0.002

5.5
6.9
0.018

125.8
124.9
0.972

Interaction
A  C 0.814

0.441

0.073

0.339

0.276

0.032

0.186

0.584

For water treatment, values followed by different letters in the same column are
statistically different (Tukey test, p < 0.05). HNS, Hoagland Nutrient Solution; CWW,
treated wastewater from a conventional treatment plant; LWW, treated wastewater
from a lagoon; Sig, signicance.

Table 4
Two-way ANOVA on heavy metal content of barley shoots, expressed as mg kg1,
considering water treatment and culture.
Cu

Mn

Ni

Pb

Zn

Water treatment (W)

SN
0.04a
0.42b
ARC
0.01b
0.91a
ARL
0.03a
1.09a
Sig.
<0.001
<0.001

Cd

Cr

7.1a
4.4b
4.8b
0.016

32.6a
12.3c
24.6b
<0.001

0.12c
0.57a
0.32b
<0.001

0.12
0.24
0.13
0.118

27.6
33.7
20.9
0.082

Culture (C)
1
0.02
2
0.03
Sig.
0.010

0.67
0.93
0.008

3.7
7.1
<0.001

20.7
25.6
0.049

0.34
0.33
0.784

0.13
0.20
0.194

21.8
33.0
0.018

Interaction
AC
0.047

0.003

0.512

0.097

0.343

0.191

0.073

For water treatment, values followed by different letters in the same column are
statistically different (Tukey test, p < 0.05). HNS, Hoagland Nutrient Solution; CWW,
treated wastewater from a conventional treatment plant; LWW, treated wastewater
from a lagoon; Sig, signicance.

for general use in hydroponic systems (Epstein and Bloom, 2005).

According to Hopper et al. (1997), its formulation satises barley
needs. Ingestad and Agren (1995) pointed out that plant properties
under unlimited conditions can be used as reference values and any
deviation from these values is a measure of resource limitation or
excess. In this way, the treatment with HNS had the maximum
aboveground and belowground productions and they were similar
in both cultures, although root biomass was lower in the second
culture (Fig. 1).
The small biomass produced by LWW was associated to its
reduced nutrient supply, lower than HNS and CWW, and the high
water pH, which reduces the availability of some elements, such as
Fe and Zn, due to precipitation (Kopittke and Menzies, 2004).
The aboveground:belowground ratio was higher in the treatments with HNS and CWW than in the treatment with LWW. Nitrogen supply has a larger effect on shoots growth than on roots
growth, and that explains the increase of this ratio (Gastal and
Lemaire, 2002). In contrast, when nutrients are limited, as in the
treatment with LWW, roots growth is stimulated in comparison to
shoots growth (Le Bot et al., 1998).
The highest contents of N detected in the shoots of barley
treated with LWW, compared with CWW were also found in a soil
experiment using the same water treatments (Adrover et al., 2012)
and were attributed to the effect of concentration/dilution, because
plants from CWW treatment accumulated more N than plants from
LWW treatments, but LWW had a lower production of dry biomass
(Fonseca et al., 2005). The effect of concentration caused by the low
growth of plants grown in LWW was observed for most of the
studied elements in shoots and roots, although not all of them were
statistically signicant (Tables 2 and 3). The only elements that
were found in a lower concentration in the LWW treatment were Fe
and Zn (Tables 2e4), which availability was reduced by the high
water pH (Kopittke and Menzies, 2004).
P content in shoots was higher comparing to values obtained by
Soon (1988) in barley leaves of the same age under eld conditions
and the values obtained for the same barley cultivar in pot cultures
in outdoors conditions (Adrover et al., 2012), which were both
about 3 g kg1. However, in all treatments except LWW, it was
lower than critical levels calculated by Bolland and Brennan (2005)
for 30 day barley (10.9 g kg1). The high P content in shoots of LWW
treatment might be attributed to a lower N:P supply ratio
(Gsewell, 2004). Values of K content in shoots were all above the
levels found under eld conditions (Soon, 1988). The highest K
content was found in shoots and roots of barley grown in HNS

M. Adrover et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 127 (2013) 162e165

(Tables 2 and 3). These values were higher than those found in
barley grown in three types of soil, in pot cultures (Adrover et al.,
2012). This fact can be explained by luxury consumption (Epstein
and Bloom, 2005), as K is more available in a water media.
Plants grown with treated wastewaters (CWW and LWW)
differed signicantly from plants grown in HNS in Na content in
shoots and roots (Tables 2 and 3). This is due to a higher Na concentration in treated wastewaters comparing to nutrient solution
(Table 1). On the other hand, plant Ca contents were higher in
barley grown with treated wastewaters than in barley grown with
HNS (Tables 2 and 3), although Ca concentration was lower in
treated wastewaters (Table 1). The concentration of Na in treated
wastewaters may result in a reduced growth due to the toxicity of
the Na (Tester and Davenport, 2003). In this case, the K concentration is critical to attenuate Na damage (Chen et al., 2005).
Similarly, Ca plays an important role in the mitigation of the
negative effects of Na (Liu and Zhu, 1998; Cramer, 2002; Kader and
Lindberg, 2010). In fact, in shoots and roots remain relatively high
levels of K and Ca (Tables 2 and 3). However, salinity from treated
wastewaters (EC: 0.9e1.6 dS m1) does not produce salt stress in
barley plants, since barley is a relatively salt-tolerant crop (Tester
and Davenport, 2003).
Heavy metal contents of the three water treatments were all
below the critical levels of toxicity for barley (Davis et al., 1978;
Macnicol and Beckett, 1985) and below values found in the pot
experiment, except for Zn (Adrover et al., 2012). In fact, the Mn
content in plants grown with CWW under hydroponic conditions
was in the critical Mn deciency range of 10e20 mg kg1 (Husted
et al., 2005).

5. Conclusions
Conventionally treated wastewater had a higher nutrient supply
than lagooned wastewater; however, nutrient content in both
treated wastewaters was not enough to maintain high barley productivity in hydroponic conditions, with nitrogen and iron being
the major limiting nutrients of these waters. Treated wastewater
did not produce any negative effect on heavy metal accumulation in
barley shoots. Independently of the treatment received, treated
wastewater is an interesting source of water although additional
fertilization is needed in hydroponic conditions.
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