Agricultural Recycling of BFT Inland Aquaculture Effluent for Blueberry ‘Duke’ Cultivation

Abstract

As an aquaculture effluent is recognized as a source of water pollution, many methods are being researched to solve this problem. It has been reported that the aquaculture effluent contains many organic compounds containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and calcium. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility of using the effluent from bio-floc technology (BFT) inland aquaculture for fertilizing blueberry ‘Duke’ to promote the growth. The experiment was conducted in a commercial blueberry farm in Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, where blueberries are actually cultivated in order to find out the effects of fertilizers in situ. The experiment was carried out with five treatments: control with only irrigation, conventional nutrient solution fertigation, and the fertigation with three concentrations (×1, ×0.5, or ×0.25) of effluent from BFT (Bio-Floc Technology) inland aquaculture. The treatment period was from the beginning of April, when a new leaf of blueberry began to develop, to the middle of June, when the blueberry was harvested, for a total of 10 weeks. As a result of the experiment, the treatments with effluent from BFT inland aquaculture showed better growth qualities than those of control and conventional cultivation. However, there was no statistically significant difference among all treatments regarding the total fruit production. Based on these results, it was concluded that the effluent from BFT inland aquaculture can be used for the cultivation of blueberry because it is equivalent to conventional cultivation method. This study provided a new viewpoint of recycling the effluent from BFT for agricultural purpose to reduce water pollution problems due to aquaculture wastewater.