Assessment of Wheat Crop Under Different Rates of Water Stress and Soil Amendments

The availability and demand for water in arid and semi-arid regions are usually out of balance due to persistent water scarcity. Alternative techniques, such as groundwater, cloud seeding, recycling wastewater and agricultural drainage, cultivating drought-resistant crops, or intentionally stressing plants with water, frequently address this shortage. To investigate this, three irrigation water regimes, 100%, 75%, and 60% of field capacity (FC), with four different types of soil amendments (SA): chicken manure (CH.), cattle manure (CA.), compost (CO.), and sediment (SE.) in an open field experiment at the Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority in Inshas, Egypt, to evaluate wheat crop grown on sandy soil. The findings demonstrated the reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo) values were 469.4, 424.2, and 410.9 mm during growth life of 142, 134, and 131 days; the applied water was 485.1, 328.1, and 285.5 mm; and the crop evapotranspiration (ETc) was 446.1, 386.0, and 364.3 mm for 100, 75, and 60% FC, respectively. The measured (meas. Dr) values of root zone depletion were consistently greater than the predicted (pred. Dr, FAO) values. The seasonal values of ETc adj were 441.6, 312.3, and 273.1 mm, and the average values of water stress coefficients (Ks) were 0.97, 0.82, and 0.77 for 100, 75, and 60% FC, respectively. Under SA conditions, the CH. has higher water consumptive use, straw yield (Sy), and grain yield (Gy) than other SA. On the other hand, under 75% FC, both irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and water usage efficiency (WUE) rose.