The Agricultural Research Department at the Ministry of Municipality has succeeded in developing a unique technique for cultivating the Salicornia europaea plant at the Vegetables and Horticulture Research Station by using the hydroponic system of return water resulting from groundwater desalination.
Director of the Agricultural Research Department Hamad Saket al-Shammari said that Salicornia cultivation is one of the department's promising strategic projects and aims to solve a problem that exists in many farms in the country.
The plant was cultivated for the second year in a row at the Vegetables and Horticulture Research Station in Al-Utouriya using the hydroponic system, which contributes to solving a major environmental problem through the use of return water resulting from the groundwater desalination process, which represents about 60% of the total treated water.
Aisha Dasmal al-Kuwari from the Agricultural Research Department explained that the Salicornia cultivation experiment comes within the interest of studying and benefiting from most of the wild plants in Qatar in order to contribute to achieving food security and environmental sustainability of genetic resources, noting that Salicornia is characterized by its ability to adapt and grow in difficult environments, and it is a plant of high economic value and is exploited in many agricultural and food uses.
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