Hoagland nutrient solution promotes the growth of cucumber seedlings under light-emitting diode light

Light-emitting diode (LED), as an efficient, energy-saving light source, has been widely used in artificial light plant production systems. It is confirmed that the combination of red and blue LED lights shows good performance on plant growth and development. Based on the hydroponic culture system in plant production factory, selection of a suitable nutrient solution for specific crop would be very important. In this study, four different widely used nutrient solutions (Hoagland, Garden-style, Yamasaki, and SCAU) were tested in perlite culture cucumber seedlings during 40-day growth under 2:1 ratio of LED lights with 12 h photoperiod at 100 +/- 5 mu mol m(-2)s(-1) irradiance. The plant growth, morphology, pigments, biomass, photosynthetic characteristics, and nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) content were measured. Cucumber seedlings treated with formula SCAU showed weak appearance, less biomass, and reduced photosynthetic activity compared with those supplied with Hoagland. However, the differences between formulae Garden-style and Yamasaki were not obvious, but both of them showed significantly higher plant height, leaf area, total leaf number, and shoot N content compared to SCAU. It is concluded that formula Hoagland shows better performance regarding cucumber seedling growth under LED light.