Effect of water deficit and planting materials on growth and yield of watercress (Nasturtium officinale) in urban farming system

Enhancement in production area of watercress can result in an increase in its production. The expansion of the production area can be done by planting watercress in polybag or other planting containers. In this way, watercress plants can be cultivated on land that was not originally agricultural land. The purpose of this study was to find out the rate of water and the type of planting material appropriate for growth and yield of watercress in pot. The experiment was conducted during January to April 2016 in screen house, Tanjung, Malang using factorial Randomized Block Design with three replications. Treatments used were planting material with 2 levels of plants i.e. seedlings (B1) and cuttings (B2) and five different water deficit levels including 25% field capacity (K25), 50% field capacity (K50), 75% field capacity (K75), 100% field capacity (K100) and 125% field capacity (K125). Results showed that there was significant interaction between rate of water and types of planting material. These interactions had significant influence on different variables, such as; plant length, number of leaves, leaf area, root length, root weight, plant weight, plant dry weight, crop growth rate, relative growth rate and yield. The results showed that the treatment of seed planting materials generally increased at all rate of water, except at the level 125% of field capacity where all variables declined. Treatment of cutting materials resulted in higher level of the water supply, the higher value of plant length, number of leaves, leaf area, plant fresh weight and plant dry weight, relative growth rate and watercress yield. Therefore, watercress cultivation in urban farming system can be planted in the pots or polybag, by using material planting of cutting and controling water content at field capacity.