To assess the effect of different water application schedules on the growth and yield of lettuce (Lactuca sativa var. crispa), a field experiment was carried out at Golinga Irrigation Site. Four treatments were laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design in four replications. The treatments were; TRT1 (adlib application by farmers), TRT2 (100% of the daily ETc applied only in the morning at each growth stage), TRT3 (100% of the daily ETc applied only in the evening at each growth stage) and TRT4 (100% ETc split: 50% of the daily ETc applied in the morning and the other 50% applied in the evening at each growth stage). The daily crop water requirement (ETc) of the crop was calculated for the four stages of growth using the CROPWAT software bearing in mind the area of each bed (16m 2). The data was analyzed using the Genstat Software. The results revealed that plants grown in the TRT4 grew healthier and recorded the highest plant height (23.3cm), number of leaves (9), leaf spread (25.03cm), leaf area index (5.25), and fresh matter weight of leaf (43.0g), yield (28.3t/ha) and water productivity (7.2kg/m). Plants grown in TRT3 recorded the least values for plant height (19.8cm), number of leaves (7), leaf spread (20.9cm), leaf area index (4.1), fresh matter weight of leaf (30.7g), yield (13.9t/ha) and water productivity (3.5kg/m 3). It is recommended that interested lettuce farmers could adopt TRT4 water application schedule since it gave the highest values in all the parameters used for data collection.
Municipal waste management has been of major concern to many developing countries and is presently one of the subjects under discussion due to rapid industrialization and population growth. Most of these municipal wastes have the potential of being recycled and use in crop production. They are gradually becoming a problem in Ghana instead of being used for purposes to benefit human kind. In this study, dried faecal sludge and municipal waste co-compost was used as an organic fertilizer to cultivate cabbage and lettuce to assess its effects on their microbial load and yield. The yields of vegetables increased significantly with the application of recommended doses of the co-compost. The analysis of microbial load on the vegetables also showed significantly low microbial load on vegetables cultivated on co-compost plots followed by the chemical fertilizer and control. The presences of faecal coliforms such as Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Escherichia coli, and Klebsiella spp. were confirmed in all. The performance of vegetable cultivated on plots treated with the co-compost makes it a good source of plant nutrients to be recommended to farmers. This could also serve as prudent strategy for managing municipal waste and faecal sludge to avoid impact of unscientific disposal on public health and quality of life.
Effective management of reservoir sedimentation requires models which can predict sedimentation of the reservoirs. In this study, linear regression, non-linear exponential regression and artificial neural network models have been developed for the forecasting of annual storage capacity loss of reservoirs in the Guinea Savannah Ecological Zone (GSEZ) of Ghana. Annual rainfall, inflows, trap efficiency and reservoir age were input parameters for the models whilst the output parameter was the annual sediment volume in the reservoirs. Twenty (20) years of reservoirs data with 70% data used for model training and 30% used for validation. The ANN model, the feed-forward, back-propagation algorithm Multi-Layer Perceptron model structure which best captured the pattern in the annual sediment volumes retained in the reservoirs ranged from 4-6-1 at Karni to 4-12-1 at Tono. The linear and nonlinear exponential regression models revealed that annual sediment volume retention increased with all four (4) input parameters whilst the rate of sedimentation in the reservoirs is a decreasing function of time. All the three (3) models developed were noted to be efficient and suitable for forecasting annual sedimentation of the studied reservoirs with accuracies above 76%. Forecasted sedimentation up to year 2038 (2019–2038) using the developed models revealed the total storage capacities of the reservoirs to be lost ranged from 13.83 to 50.07%, with 50% of the small and medium reservoirs filled with sediment deposits if no sedimentation control measures are taken to curb the phenomenon.
The study was carried out in northern Ghana to estimate surface runoff in nine (9) reservoir catchments for a period of 20 years (1999–2018) using the United States Department of Agriculture Natural Resource Conservation Service-Curve Number (USDA-NRCS-CN) method. The key input parameters of the method were hydrologic soil group, antecedent moisture condition, rainfall amount, landuse/landcover, weighted curve number and potential maximum soil moisture retention. The annual rainfall within the reservoir catchments was found to vary between 617.2 and 1,382.3 mm. The estimated annual runoff depths ranged from 68.5 ± 7.5 to 98.0 ± 13.3 mm and the percentage annual rainfall converted into runoff varied between 9.8 ± 0.7 and 13.7 ± 0.9 %. Hydrologic soil groups accounted for about 67.2 % and 62.5 % of the variation in runoff depth and percentage runoff respectively, in the reservoir catchments. Catchment size accounted for only 2.7 % and 3.9 % of the variation in runoff depth and the percentage of the amount of rainfall converted into runoff respectively, in the reservoir catchments. Therefore, hydrologic soil groups should be used by reservoir managers as a primary indicator of the potential runoff generation in reservoir catchments.
CROPWAT 8.0 model was used to estimate the water requirement of pineapple for the 2021/22 cropping period, considering all the months in the year. This was done to ascertain which months in the year have lower irrigation water requirements and where water savings can be made. For the months of December to August, irrigation requirement (mm) of 140, 145.1, 113.3, 110.8, 110.9, 145.9, 107.6 and 114, respectively was determined at the study site. However, sucker planting in September, October and November has shown requirements (mm) of 72.8, 61.3, 61.4 respectively, and adjusting the planting calendar to accommodate these months is recommended.
The study assessed performance and state of water retention infrastructure of eight (8) irrigation schemes in three (3) northern regions of Ghana. Data was collected using field observation and key informants’ interviews. The results indicated that the Tono and Bontanga earthen irrigation dams’ embankments had no structural defects whereas the embankments of Libga, Golinga, Karni, Vea, Doba and Sankana had some structural defects. Except Libga, all the spillways had no structural deficiencies and signs of risk of failure. All the reservoirs contained some amounts of sediments and weeds. The night storage reservoirs at Tono and Vea were weedy and silted up. The developed irrigable areas of Vea, Tono, Doba, Sankana and Karni schemes had average irrigation rates ranging from 12 - 76 % for the years 2010 - 2017. The water retention infrastructure of the irrigation schemes are recommended for maintenance and periodic repairs to ensure sustainable water retention and availability for crop irrigation.
The present study assessed the physicochemical quality of irrigation dam reservoir sediment deposits for possible use in enriching soils in Northern Ghana. The surface area of the 9 study reservoirs was divided into upstream, midstream and downstream sections, with 18 undisturbed sediment samples taken at 0–30 cm depth for determining the soil dry bulk density, and 30 samples collected for analysis of particle size distribution, pH, macronutrients, CEC, EC, ESP and SAR. Reservoir sediments were rich in plant macronutrients (K, Ca and Mg) and organic matter and high in silt and clay content. The dry bulk density ranged from 1.10 ± 0.02 g/cm3 to 1.39 ± 0.08 g/cm3, while the sediment particle sizes were 10.3%–24.8% sand, 43.7%–53.1% silt and 30.6%–37.8% clay. The sediment pH ranged from a moderately acidic level of 5.48–6.64, with high levels of organic carbon (1.37%–2.96%) and organic matter (2.36%–5.10%). The total nitrogen (N) was found to be low (0.14%–0.29%), while the phosphorus (P) ranged from 2.6% to 4.9%, about 10 times higher than the FAO recommended normal average range. Except for the potassium (K) in two of the present study reservoirs, the exchangeable bases concentrations in the sediments were within acceptable levels for crop production. The CEC values were within moderate levels (13.69 to 29.84 cmol/kg), corresponding to a non‐expanding, chemically inactive clay, while the salinity and sodicity were absent, with the EC varying between 0.03 and 0.27 dS/m and ESP ranging from 1.8% to 12.9%. Pearson's correlation analyses indicated both positive and negative relationships among the various physicochemical parameters. Based on the present study results, desilted irrigation reservoir sediments, being rich in all plant nutrients, except for N, appear to have great potential to enhance crop production for farmers.
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