Fluctuation of Nematode Populations in some Vegetable Hosts under Drip and Conventional Irrigation Systems

Abstract

Water shortages have increased Egyptian growers interest towards drip irrigation. Conventional and drip, are two types of irrigation systems which wereselected to investigate their effect on the fluctuation of the populations of some plant parasitic nematodes on growth of different vegetable host plants: tomato(Lycopersicon esculentum), eggplant(Solanum melongena), peppers(Capsicum annum), cucumber(Cucumis sativus), and cowpea(Vigna sinenses). The predominant genera of plant parasitic nematodes recovered from soil samples (Pi & Pf) were Meloidogyne, Helicotylenchus, Pratylenchus, Paratylenchus, Rotylenchulus, Hoplolaimus, Tylenchorhynchus,and Xiphinema. On the whole the results showed that, Meloidogyne and Pratylenchus were the most common plant parasitic nematode in the plant hosts (cucumber tomatoeggplant peppers cowpea) and the nematode population were lesser in drip irrigated plants (97.3, 69.0, 87.0, 81.0, 83.3 and 71.3, 46.7, 69.7, 59.0 63.0) respectively, than those of conventional irrigation (104.3, 83.7, 93.0, 85.7, 88.0 and 75.3, 68.0, 80.3, 64.0, 72.3) respectively. We can conclude that, the drip irrigation system can be used as a Strategy of nematode pests in combination with different strategies without greatly affecting on the crop growth.