干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The environmental pollution from agricultural waste and waste from the barns are considered of the main sources of environmental pollution facing Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as poor physical properties and soil fertility that coupled with the desert lands (sandy soils), which cover most of the area of the two specified countries. In addition to, the phenomenon of desertification, which reflects the loss of the soil beside the deserts to its fertility and changed from productive to nonproductive. Getting ride off agricultural waste and reclaiming desert lands, with very poor physical properties, are the challenges. The agricultural waste are rich in organic matter which reduce the pollution load and improve hydro-physical properties of such kind of soil (e. g. Egyptian and Saudi deserts), this research was conducted to study the effect of using two types of compost, prepared from different agricultural waste (i.e. stable wastes and plant residuals), at different application positions. The application positions were surface application (SA), sub-surface application (SbA), and whole application (WA). The studied parameters were soil evaporation (E), evapotranspiration (ET), and water use efficiency (WUE). A pot experiment under green house was carried out to reach those objectives. The obtained results could be summarized as follows. Significantly, E and ET were decreased and WUE was increased. About 13% of applied water could be saved by applying compost to sandy soil, regardless compost type or application position. No significant difference was found between the two applied composts. WA was associated with the highest E and ET and the lowest WUE comparing with the other two application positions. No significant difference was found between SA and SbA. Based on the previously mentioned results the study recommended using compost as an amendment of desert (i.e. sandy soil) for the purpose of water conservation and recycling agricultural wastes as well.