Estimating ETO and scheduling crop irrigation using Blaney–Criddle equation when only air-temperature data are available and solving the issue of missing meteorological data in Egypt

Accurate assessment of evapotranspiration is essential for crop irrigation planning. In developing countries and given the cost of evaluating evapotranspiration based on the Penman-Monteith equation, this research is an attempt to provide a simple equation that depends only on temperature to estimate evapotranspiration and serve as an alternative method to FAO56-PM when only air temperature data are available and the problem of missing meteorological data is solved. Four reference methods for evapotranspiration (ET) were compared under the local climatic conditions of the El-Nobaria region in northern Egypt. The Blaney–Criddle method was found to have the highest correlation with the FAO56-PM method. Using the simple equations to calculate ETo for irrigation scheduling of peanuts had a positive effect on the yield and yield components of peanuts. The highest productivity value was obtained when the Blaney–Criddle equation was used to estimate peanut irrigation scheduling, while equation resulted in lower productivity. When the equation was used, the differences in productivity between the equations were highly significant. It is worth noting that when the Blaney–Criddle and Thorthwaite equations were used, followed by the FAO56-PM equation, the superiority of the water productivity value became evident, as the increase in nutrient concentration in the root zone led to increased nutrient uptake, resulting in an increase in the productivity of peanut yield, oil and protein

Estimating ETo and scheduling crop irrigation using Blaney–Criddle equation when only air-temperature data are available and solving the issue of missing meteorological data in Egypt

Accurate assessment of evapotranspiration is essential for crop irrigation planning. In developing countries and given the cost of evaluating evapotranspiration based on the Penman-Monteith equation, this research is an attempt to provide a simple equation that depends only on temperature to estimate evapotranspiration and serve as an alternative method to FAO56-PM when only air temperature data are available and the problem of missing meteorological data is solved. Four reference methods for evapotranspiration (ET) were compared under the local climatic conditions of the El-Nobaria region in northern Egypt. The Blaney–Criddle method was found to have the highest correlation with the FAO56-PM method. Using the simple equations to calculate ETo for irrigation scheduling of peanuts had a positive effect on the yield and yield components of peanuts. The highest productivity value was obtained when the Blaney–Criddle equation was used to estimate peanut irrigation scheduling, while equation resulted in lower productivity. When the equation was used, the differences in productivity between the equations were highly significant. It is worth noting that when the Blaney–Criddle and Thorthwaite equations were used, followed by the FAO56-PM equation, the superiority of the water productivity value became evident, as the increase in nutrient concentration in the root zone led to increased nutrient uptake, resulting in an increase in the productivity of peanut yield, oil and protein. Paper presented at: International Scientific and Practical Conference “Methods for Synthesis of New Biologically Active Substances and Their Application in Various Industries of the World Economy – 2023” (MSNBAS2023), Moscow, Russian Federation, December 5-6, 2023

Improving crop production and water productivity using a new field drip irrigation design

Coping with the limited water resources in Egypt is a big challenge and there is a need to find new and innovative techniques for saving irrigation water. Although drip irrigation is the most efficient system for preserving irrigation water, the water distribution uniformity of the standard drippers requires great attention as it varies over drip line length. Two experiments were conducted during the growing seasons of 2015/2016 and 2016/2017, in the north of Egypt to assess the performance of a newly developed design of drip irrigation system compared with two conventional irrigation system designs. The aim is to save water and fertilizers in sandy soil, using potato crop as a sensitive crop to water stress. The tested drip irrigation systems were: Design1: traditional drip irrigation system (control), Design2: drip irrigation system with the same direction for manifolds lines and laterals and Design 3, the new design: drip irrigation system with opposite direction for manifolds lines and laterals. The following parameters were considered to assess the performance of the different irrigation system designs: (1) the average emitter discharge along laterals for the three designs, (2) water emission uniformity, (3) application efficiency of irrigation water (4) tuber yield of potato (5) water productivity of potato “WPpotato” and (6) nitrogen productivity of potato “NPpotato”. The results of the study revealed that the maximum values of yield, WPpotato and FPpotato were obtained under the new design. This was due to the high uniformity in distribution of irrigation water and fertilizers along drip lines