Impact of Irrigation Water Quality, Frequency, and Technique on Cabbage Yield, Water Productivity, and Soil Properties in Clay Soil

The shortage of freshwater resources is a considerable challenge for agricultural production in Egypt. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of irrigation fresh and agricultural drainage water, irrigation frequency and watering methods on cabbage water productivity and some soil chemical properties in two seasons at Kafrelsheikh University Farm, Kafr-Elsheikh government, Egypt. The experiment was carried out as a split-spilt design with three replications. The experiment factors included tow irrigation water treatments (FIW: fresh irrigation water as control) and (ADW: Irrigation with agricultural drainage water) as main plots, four irrigation frequencies (10-12 days for surface Irrigation as control), (IF2:Irrigation every two days),(IF4:Irrigation every four days) and (IF6:Irrigation every six days) as sub plots and three watering methods (SI:conventional furrow irrigation system as control), (TK:drip Irrigation with turbo-K dripper) and (GR:drip Irrigation with GR dripper) as sub-sub plots. The results showed that the GR emitter has the best performance. The suitable average values of yield and water productivity of 53815.29kg/fed and 46.61kg/m3 were recorded with the combinations IFW+IF4+GR, respectively, for two seasons. The percentages of these increases were 12.9% and 250.6%, respectively, when compared with control treatment. The average lowest value of EC for two seasons was 3.31dS/m, which were recorded with the combination IFW+IF6+TK at the end of irrigation operations. We recommend further study on the use of different types of wastewaters, as there is mixing between sewage, agricultural, and industrial wastewater on the same drain. Also, more different types of modern irrigation systems need to be studied.