Impact of Some Soil Amendments on Productivity and Insect Infestation of Cowpea under Water Stress in New Lands

Abstract

An urgent food security problem is emerging in Egypt caused by rapidly increasing food demand exacerbated by intensifying fresh water scarcity. Hence, the study objective is to enhance cowpea production by using soil amendments under water stress in new agricultural soil. In this study, different water stress regimes were applied and soil amendments (biochar and compost, and biochar and compost) with application rate of 2 ton/ feddan were used. The rice straw biochar (RSB) was synthesis by using the slow pyrolysis process and the compost (COM) was composted from agriculture waste. The characterizations of RSB and COM have been investigated. In addition, the experiment has been designed through two successive seasons 2021 and 2022 at the Shandweel Agricultural Research Station, Sohag, Egypt, for cultivating cowpea under a drip irrigation system with three replicates. During the experiments, insect infestation (Aphis craccivora, Liriomyza trifolii and Empoasca decipiens), some plant traits and soil properties were examined. The findings showed that cowpea production was significantly reduced as a result of water stress. In addition, using COM, RSB and COM+RSB can be alleviating the water stress impact on some plant and soil properties. Thence, the result leads to a preliminary recommendation for the use the mixture between biochar and compost to reduce the negative effect of water stress on cowpea and soil properties in new reclaimed soil. Thence, these amendments can be applied as a tool to suppress the populations of A. craccivora, L. trifolii, and E. decipiens in future cowpea IPM operations.