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Book of Abstracts First Legume Society Conference 2013: A Legume Odyssey Novi Sad, Serbia, 9-11 May 2013
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The use of legumes in an aquaponic agricultural system
Valentini A Pappa 1, 2 , Alex Matthis 1 , Andreas Graber 1
1 Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, Waedenswil, Switzerland
2 SRUC, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, UK
Aquaponics is the combination of aquaculture (fish) and hydroponic cultivation of plants without
soil. The technology works as a closed loop system that reduces the consumption of fresh water
compared to conventional monocultures and uses the nutrients excreted by the fish as fertilizer.
Thus all fish feed nutrients can be utilised. Legumes are widely grown for food both as grain
(pulses) or fresh as a vegetable. They are an important protein source both directly as food and,
to an even higher volume, indirectly as animal feed. In both purposes they yield a high and widely
recognised quality. During the winter period 2012-2013, pea plants were grown in an aquaponic
based facility examining the cultivar variation in an NFT setting, irrigated with fish water.
Nutrient, water and energy balances within the growing period were determined, but also
possible reuses of the rockwool substrate after harvesting of the peas. Legumes (mugabean, peas,
faba beans and lentils) were grown as microgreens in the used inorganic substrate (grodan) as the
second phase of the experiment. Preliminary results at this stage indicate that legumes can
successfully grow in an aquaponic facility providing very low use of inorganic inputs, low energy
and water use but high prospect on food supply growing in such high-tech systems. This opens
the prospect that food production could move from the fields even into the heart of cities.
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