EFFECT OF IRRIGATION SCHEDULING, SOIL MULCHING AND AMENDMENTS ON SOME SOIL PHYSICAL PROPERTIES, SOYBEAN YIELD AND CROP WATER RELATIONS UNDER CALCAREOUS CLAY SOILS

Document Type : Research articles.

Authors

1 Soils and Water Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt.

2 Agricultural Department of El-Fayoum, El-Fayoum, Egypt.

Abstract

Calcareous soils generally have some problems; poor soil physical
and chemical properties, crusting, salinity and low productivity. Optimizing
water application by irrigation scheduling increases water use efficiency,
growth and yield of crops in addition to water rationalization. The aim of the
present work was to study the effect of irrigation scheduling, soil mulching
and soil amendments application rates on some physical properties of a clay
calcareous soil and soybean production and crop water relations. A field
experiment was conducted at Menshat Rabie Village, Itsa District, Fyoum
Governorate, Egypt. Three irrigation treatments were applied i.e., I
1 (1.0 of
cumulative pan evaporation, C.P.E.), I
2 (0.8 of C.P.E.) and I3 (0.6 of C.P.E.).
Two soil mulching treatments were applied, i.e., without soil mulching and
black plastic mulching. The effects of two soil amendments namely poultry
manure and agriculture sulfur were also tested. Three levels of each soil
amendment were applied: (17.86, 35.71, and 53.57 m
3 ha-1 of poultry manure)
and (178.57, 357.14 and 535.71 kg ha
-1 of agricultural sulfur). The experiment
included 36 treatments distributed in a split split design with three replicates.
Soybean (Glycine max. Giza 111 variety) was grown along two successive
seasons (2014 and 2015). Obtained results showed that the applied treatments
resulted in significant and considerable effects on the studied soil properties
such as, decreases of soil bulk density and increases each of total porosity,
available water content, soil hydraulic conductivity values and soybean plant
growth and productivity. Applied treatments improved water consumptive use
and increased the water use efficiency values of soybean crop. It was
concluded the application of irrigation treatment 0.8 of cumulative pan
evaporation with the use of poultry manure at the rate 53.57 m
3 ha-1 under
mulching with black plastic were superior than all other studied treatments and
could save about 20% of water requirements of soybean crop grown on a clay
calcareous soil.


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