The Efficiency of Organic Mulching for Improving the Water Productivity under Dry Regions

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Water Relations and Field Irrigation Department, Agricultural and Biological Division, National Research Centre ,33 EL Bohouth St., Dokki, Giza, Egypt, Postal Code: 12622.

2 Bio-Engineering Department, Agricultural Engineering Research Institute (AEnRI), Agricultural Research Center (ARC), Ministry of Agriculture, Giza, Egypt

3 Soil, Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Fayium University, Egypt.

Abstract

There are many benefits for using rice straw as organic mulching as sustainable materials for saving irrigation water under sandy and drought conditions. This study investigated the effect of rice straw organic mulching on the water stress, soil salt accumulation, Microorganism activity, yield and water productivity of potato, sweet paper and cucumber crops under sandy soils conditions during 2019 and 2020 seasons in the research farm station of National Research Centre at Al-Nubariya Region, Al-Buhayrah Governorate, Egypt. There was a positive effect on the yield and water productivity by using the organic mulching by rice straw as sustainable mulch instead of plastic mulch. The rate of increase in yield of potato, sweet paper and cucumber were summarized where the highest rates of increase in productivity for all crops that were planted were achieved with the organic coverage of rice straw, with the largest amount of straw for the seasons 2019 and 2020 compared to no mulch and also compared to black plastic mulch where, the rate of increase in yield of potato were 23.4% , 30.21% and for sweet paper were 32.85% , 36.21% and for cucumber were 23.94% , 27.78% in seasons 2019 and 2020 respectively.

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