Zeolite and Compost as Soil Amendments to Rationalize Irrigation Water for the Barley Crop under Salt Affected Soils

The availability of irrigation water needs to be modified by some irrigation management and the application of water-rationalizing strategies. Therefore, field experiments were conducted in two successive winter sessions during 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 at Sakha Agricultural Research Station Farm, Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate, Egypt. This research was carried out to study the effect of irrigation number/season ie. using only sowing irrigation (I 1 ), sowing irrigation+ one irrigation (I 2 ) and sowing irrigation+ two irrigations (I 3 ) and application of some soil amendments (zeolite and compost) and their combinations on some soil properties, some water relations and yield of barley ( Hordeum vulgare L. ) Giza 2000. Results showed that the values of seasonal water applied, actual consumptive use (CU) out of two seasons took the following descending order: I 3 > I 2 > I 1 . While, I 1 gave the highest values of water productivity (WP), and irrigation water productivity (IWP). The plots that received sowing irrigation+ two irrigations (I 3 ) with zeolite+compost showed a pronounced improvement of soil salinity (ECe), Exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), soil bulk density (BD), soil basic infiltration rate (IR), and yield and its components of barley. The application of zeolite and compost alleviated the adverse effect of drought on soil properties and barley productivity.