The Impact of Soil Amendments on Virtual Water Content of Soybean Planted in New Reclaimed Areas

摘要

IN REGIONS, which suffer from potential water shortage like Egypt, water policies and different mitigation measures are formulated. In Egypt with the increasing population and increasing demand for food with die fixed supply of water, the demand management policies have been introduced. Lastly, the concept of Virtual Water content has been introduced and adopted as an integrated supply and demand water management policy. The concept of Virtual Water content is defined as the water 'embodied' in a product, not in real sense, but in virtual sense. With integrated water resources management policy, the hydrological components of the area and the water quantity that has been consumed for products are considered and analyzed for the determination of thesupply side capacity and the stakeholders interests including the quantity and quality of the products are considered for the demand side to make the best allocation of water resources. Therefore the main objective of this study is to assess the impact of using different biofortifled composted soil amendments in the Virtual Water content (VWc) and the nutrition quality indicators of soybean yield cultivated in newly reclaimed areas. The studied area was supplied with biofortifled composts including sugar beet haulms (SBH), flax shivers (FS), rice straw (RS) and farmyard manure (FYM) to evaluate its effect on Virtual Water content, yield and yield components of soybean grown in that area. The values of VWc were calculated for each type of biofortifled compost. The values were ranged from 1535 to 2128 m3/ton. The lowest value of the VWc was measured with soybean crop biofortifled composted soil with SBH and FS respectively. On the other hand for the yield components and nutrition quality indicators, thesoybean seeds fertilized with biofortifled composted SBH or FS or RS contained the greatest percentage of protein and oil. Moreover, the counts of phosphate solubilizing bacteria (PSB), Azospirillum spp., and Pseudomonas spp. were always higher in the rhizosphere of plants growing in soil treated with various biofortifled composts as compared to that biofortifled with FYM or chemical fertilizer application. The soil treated with biofortifled compost SBH recorded higher counts of tested microorganisms in soybean rhizosphere as compared to other biofortifled compost. Generally, it could be concluded that the different organic composts led to improve the quantity and quality of soybean yield in comparison to chemical fertilizers application. They also had significant impacts on the values of the VWc.