Abd-Eladl, M. (2018). Integrated Management of Wheat under Dry Land Conditions. Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 9(12), 781-791. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2018.36537
M. Abd-Eladl. "Integrated Management of Wheat under Dry Land Conditions". Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 9, 12, 2018, 781-791. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2018.36537
Abd-Eladl, M. (2018). 'Integrated Management of Wheat under Dry Land Conditions', Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 9(12), pp. 781-791. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2018.36537
Abd-Eladl, M. Integrated Management of Wheat under Dry Land Conditions. Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 2018; 9(12): 781-791. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2018.36537
Integrated Management of Wheat under Dry Land Conditions
Soils, Water and Environment Research Institute (SWERI), Agriculture Research Centre (ARC), Egypt.
Abstract
Under arid and semi-arid conditions, increasing wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) productivity by using less water is a great challenge of the agricultural sector. A field experiment was conducted in Om-Elrakham, Marsa Matrouh Governorate, Egypt during winter season 2016-2017 and repeated in 2017-2018 to examine the effect of various farming practices on wheat production under dryland condition. The treatments were 1) supplemental irrigation treatments (rainfed, 60% of water requirement (SI1) and full requirement (SI2)), 2) two hydrogel applications (with hydrogel (H) and without hydrogel (H0) addition) and 3) three fertilization treatments (control (F0), traditional mineral fertilizers (TF) and slow release fertilizer (SRF) application) on wheat production. The obtained results indicated that wheat production increased gradually with applied supplemental irrigation in the following order: SI2> SI1 > rainfed. Hydrogel treatment led to an increase in wheat grain yield by 19.1, 14.8 and 9.4% under rainfed, SI1 and SI2, respectively compared with H0 treatment. Generally, the addition of hydrogel enhanced the studied soil physical properties. Slow release fertilizer superior to traditional fertilizers that enhanced wheat yield compared with control (F0). Although increasing applied water led to decrease IWUE, the addition of hydrogel and slow-release fertilizer raised both of irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and economic water productivity (EWP). Interestingly, the interaction SI1xHxSRF (1274.5 and 1276.0 kg/fed.) produced higher grain yield than SI2x H0x F0 (928.0 and 995.1 kg/fed.) and SI2x H0xTF (1207.0 and 1206.7 kg/fed) in the first and second season, respectively. Thus, it can reserve about 40% of added water by using hydrogel and slow release fertilizers with SI1 (60% of water requirements) under the studied soil conditions. It can address the challenges of wheat production under dryland conditions by the integration between supplemental irrigation, hydrogel, and slow-release fertilizers.