Effect of Pulse Irrigation and Pulse Fertigation on the Yield, Water Productivity and Quality of Cucumber Under the Dry Environmental Conditions of Sandy Soil

Abstract

Consideration of the use of the pulse technique for irrigation and fertigation is one of the irrigation management methods to enhance crop production, water productivity, and lower deep percolation. An experiment was carried out using three pulse irrigation "PI" levels [PI1: Continues irrigation (control), PI2: 2 pulses/day and PI3:3 pulses/day] with five cases for pulse fertigation "PF" per season [PF4: 4 pulses/season (control), PF5: 5 pulses/season, PF6: 6 pulses/season, PF7: 7 pulses/season and PF8: 8 pulses/season] to inspect the impact of those treatments for increasing water productivity and productivity and improvement of the quality traits for cucumber crop under the dry environment conditions of sandy soil. To meet the study's objectives, two greenhouse experiments had been carried out in Al-Nubariya Region, Al-Buhayrah Governorate, Egypt, during the seasons 2021 and 2022. Our results demonstrated a general decrease in water stress inside the root zone area with the increase of the irrigation pulses number under pulse fertigation treatments during the seasons 2021 and 2022. Pulsed irrigation led to a higher value for water application efficiency when contrasted with continuous irrigation under pulse fertigation treatments of cucumber crop for the two seasons. According to this study, pulse irrigation and pulse fertigation improved crop yield and water productivity over the two seasons. The highest cucumber yield values were (34.1 and 33 tons ha. -1 ), and water productivity were (5.6 and 5.4 kg m -3 ) using 3 pulses/day of pulse irrigation with 8 pulses/season for pulse fertigation for seasons 2021 and 2022, respectively. As per our results for impact of pulse irrigation and pulse fertigation on yield, water productivity and quality traits indicated that, adopting 3 pulses/day of pulse irrigation with 8 pulses/season for pulse fertigation is the perfect condition in light of the fact that under these conditions was happened the highest worth of yield, water productivity and the quality traits for cucumber crop contrasted with other treatments during seasons 2021 and 2022. Finally, these treatments condition is beneficial to improve nitrogen utilization efficiency. In addition, it can raise the density of root length and the zone of root surface in the layers of deep soil, especially at 20-35 cm of soil depth, and partially increase root growth in depth.