| Author's Name: |
Manal M.H. Gad El-Moula, Saad Abou-El-Hassan & Abdelhamid E.A. Sherif |
| Subject Area: |
Life Sciences |
| Subject |
Agricultural |
| Section |
Research Paper |
Keyword:
Snap bean, mulching, irrigation levels, water use efficiency
Abstract
Maximizing water use efficiency is an urgent need to increase the agricultural production in arid and semi-arid regions. An experiment was conducted during two successive seasons of 2016 and 2017, to study possibility maximizing water use efficiency for snap bean via reducing irrigation levels and using different types of mulch. The experiment was executed at the site of Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate (CLAC), Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt. Three irrigation levels (60, 80 and 100% of standard evapotranspiration) and five types of mulch (non-mulch, black plastic, date bunches, palm fiber and rice straw), were applied on snap beans cv. Paulista. All vegetative growth properties, nutritional status of plants and yield of pods were improved significantly by increasing irrigation level to 100%. The different types of mulch led to a significant increment in growth, NPK content of plants and yield of pods compared to non-mulch. The highest yield and quality of pods were produced by irrigation level 60% with black plastic mulch, irrigation level 80% with palm fiber mulch and irrigation level 100% with mulches of date bunches, palm fiber and rice straw. Using irrigation level 60% with black plastic mulch recorded the highest efficiency for water use and reducing weed growth.