SAVING IRRIGATION WATER AND IMPROVING WATER PRODUCTIVITY IN RICE CULTIVATION BY INDUCING NEW PLANTING METHOD IN NORTH NILE DELT, EGYPT

Abstract

Two field experiments were conducted at Sakha Agricultural Research Station Farm, Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt. The site is allocated at 310-07' N Latitude, 300-57'E Longitude with an elevation of about 6 metres above mean sea level, during the two successive seasons of 2009 and 2010. The rice cultivar was Sakha 104. The experiment was designed as a split split-plot design with four replicates. The main plots were randomly occupied by two nitrogen resources urea (F1) and gaseous ammonia (F2). While two planting methods treatments; traditional transplanting in flooded soil (M1) and Transplanting in beds (M2) were assigned to sub-plots and three irrigation depths 9, 7 and 5 cm for d1, d2 and d3, respectively. Results showed that both submerged depth of 9 and 7 cm significantly increased plant height, number of tillers/m2,panicle weight and 1000 grain weight compared to submerged depth of 5 cm, there were no significant differences between submerged depth of 9 and 7 cm . Planting in bottom of beds significantly increased grain yield, number of tillers/hill, number of panicles/hill, panicle length, plant height, Panicle weight and 1000 grains weight by 3.45%, 6.2%, 6.7%, 19.9%, 4.9 %,0.58% and 1.6%, respectively compared with traditional planting method. There were no significant differences in grain yield between nitrogen resources, urea and gaseous ammonia. Average amounts of the applied irrigation water were 13933, and 10997 m3/ha. for traditional planting and planting in bottom of beds respectively, i.e. method of planting in bottom of bed saved about 21% of the irrigation water applied. Productivity of irrigation water was increased significantly by 58%. Therefore, method of planting in bottom of beds could be applied for the rice in North Delta Egypt, it enhanced WP by 67.1% and saved water by 21% without significant reduction in its yield, compared with traditional planting. Abbreviations: Productivity of irrigation water (PIW), irrigation water applied (IWA), grain yield (GY), Straw yield (SY), nitrogen resources (F) Planting method (M), and depth of irrigation water (d).