How to Increase the Nutritional Quality of Stinging Nettle Through Controlled Plant Nutrition

Research background: As food production faces major challenges, modern agricultural practices are increasingly focused on conserving resources, reducing negative environmental impacts and sustainably producing food with a high content of health-promoting phytochemicals. During production, many factors can affect the quality and chemical composition of a final food product. Proper selection of cultivating conditions, especially a balanced nutrition, can significantly increase nutritional value and result in foods with strong biological and functional properties. Stinging nettle is a rich source of minerals, vitamins, pigments, phenols and other bioactive compounds and can be consumed as a green leafy vegetable with beneficial effects on human health. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the nutritional quality and antioxidant capacity of stinging nettle leaves under the influence of different nutrient solution (NS) treatments and three harvest cycles. Experimental approach: The experiment was conducted in a floating hydroponic system in which treatments with different nutrient solutions were applied and three harvest cycles were carried out. After each harvest, the following treatments were applied: treatment 1 - depletion of nutrient solution by adding water, treatment 2 - supplementation of nutrient solution by adding initial nutrient solution and treatment 3 - correction of nutrient solution by adding nutrients. Among the bioactive compounds, minerals, ascorbic acid, phenols and photosynthetic pigments content, as well as antioxidant capacity were analysed spectrophotometrically, while individual phenols were determined by liquid chromatography. Results and conclusions: Different nutrition solution treatments and the number of harvest cycles had a significant effect on the content of the analysed bioactive compounds. The highest mass fraction (on fresh mass basis) of total phenols expressed as gallic acid equivalents (377.04 mg/100 g), total flavonoids expressed as catechol equivalents (279.54 mg/100 g), ascorbic acid (112.37 mg/100 g) and pigments (total chlorophylls 1.84, and total carotenoids 0.36 mg/g) as well as the highest antioxidant capacity expressed as Trolox equivalents (35.47 µmol/g) were recorded in the samples supplemented with nutrient solution (treatment NS2) and analysed after the third harvest. Novelty and scientific contribution: This is the first time that stinging nettle leaves have been produced in a floating hydroponic system by controlled plant nutrition. We have set this type of nutritional manipulation with multiple harvest cycles as an innovative technique for the production of novel food with improved nutritional value that can be consumed as green leafy vegetables.