Renovation of The Unused Ancient Egyptian Trenching Approach For Producing High-Yield And Quality of Watermelon With Maximizing The Irrigation Water Use Efficiency

Abstract

This study was conducted on an open field farm in El-Salheya El-Gedida, Sharqia Governorate, Egypt, for two successive seasons 2016 and 2017. As an attempt for water conservation in watermelon cultivation and maximization the irrigation water use efficiency by improving the old unused method of watermelon production in Egypt in addition to, using watermelon grafting on some tolerant rootstocks to water stress. This experiment consisted of 15 treatments (3 cultivation approach of watermelon (rainfed (traditional trenches without irrigation), beds (rows) with drip irrigation according calculated irrigation requirement by CLIMWAT 2.0 and CROPWAT 8.0 software (2320.7m) and renovated method (Trenches with drip by 40% from calculated irrigated requirements (928.28m) × 5 grafting treatments (4 rootstocks bottle gourd and Emphasis hybrid F1 (Lagenaria siceraria), Shintosa F1 hybrid and Ferro RZ F1 hybrid (Cucurbita maxima × C. moschata) and Aswan F1without grafting). The experiment layout was a factorial in strip plot with randomized complete blocks design with three replicates. Planting methods were set in the main strip plot whereas the grafting treatments were set randomly in sub plot. This study was succeeded in producing high yield quantities of watermelon under the conditions of water regime (40%) that were almost equal with the yield under the complete water supply requirements conditions (100%). This result was evidently from the absence of significant differences between the average yield of the two methods, which was significantly higher than the average yield of the traditional trenching method (without irrigation). The renovated trenches improved the quality characteristics of watermelon fruits compared with the traditional trench yield. Grafting on different rootstocks improved all vegetative growth traits and led to an enhancement in the yield components, this was obviously in the significant increase in the vegetative growth values, which reflected by dependency on the yield quantity and quality. The use of both trenches method equipped with the drip irrigation system with grafting on tolerant rootstocks to water shortage led to an increase in the irrigation water use efficiency (IWUS), as it led to doubling the values of (IWUS) compared to the beds with drip irrigation according the calculated water requirements by this Software. In Conclusion, to get the highest yield and quality with maximizing of the (IWUE) on watermelon, it could be recommended to use the renovated trench method equipped with drip irrigation system plus grafting on tolerant rootstocks.