Lamy HAMED

Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is a major crop grown on 24 million ha around the world for edible oil and food. Globally, peanut varieties with high yield potential and adaptation ability have been enhanced, developed, and approved for cultivation. The improved varieties have diverse maturity durations and have disease resistance, drought tolerance, increased oil content, and improved quality traits for food uses. Currently, the limitations of productive agricultural lands and the scarcity of available water are the critical factors contributing to the gap in food production worldwide. In this direction, a two-year-long field study was conducted during the summer seasons of 2019 and 2020 to study the ability to cultivate certain peanut varieties, including Giza 6, Giza 5, and Gregory. Three water regimes100, 80, and 60% of crop water requirement (CWR) were applied using two methods of irrigation application (drip and sprinkler) in new agricultural expansion areas located north of Cairo city. The obtained results confirmed that increasing the water deficit from 100% to 60% of CWR significantly reduced all peanut growth traits such as biomass by 14.3%, pod by 14.2%, and seed by 7.8%, but the 80% water regime recorded the highest oil content. Regarding the irrigation systems, the drip irrigation system surpassed the sprinkler system in both successive seasons in all studied variables. Giza 5 variety, along with 60% of CWR, recorded the highest water productivity for biomass and pod yields. The Giza 6 variety was the most tolerant variety based on the stress tolerance index (STI), whereas the Gregory variety was the least drought-tolerant variety.

Two field experiments were conducted at the experimental farm of the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate (CLAC), Agricultural Research Center, Giza, Egypt, during 2017 and 2018 seasons, to evaluate the effects of compost and organic extracts on growth and yield of sweet corn (Misthi F1 Hybrid) and microbial populations in rhizosphere. Extracts of compost, vermicompost and chicken manure with adding half dose of compost were compared to full dose of compost and mineral fertilizers. The populations of total bacteria, fungi and phosphate solublizing bacteria were estimated. Results showed that applying half dose of compost with adding vermicompost (50% C + VEx) extract gave the highest growth, yield and ear properties of sweet corn without any significant differences compared to mineral fertilizer treatment. Applying half dose of compost with adding extract of compost or chicken manure decreased growth, yield and ear properties of sweet corn compared to mineral fertilizer. 50% C + ChEx recorded the highest total bacterial counts. The treatments of half dose of compost with adding any organic extracts were superior to full dose of compost (100% C) in all studied traits. This study revealed the possibility of using half dose of compost with adding vermicompost extract for producing satisfactory yield quantity with high quality of sweet corn ears.

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ABSTRACT
Deterioration of soil quality in relation to its current and future productivity and/or reduced potential of soil as a natural resource is a serious threat for an increasing number of areas all over the world. Soil erosion is an environmental problem and causes land degradation associated with its off/on-site effects. Tackling on/off-site effects requires understanding of soil loss rate and other factors which can enhance or retard soil loss. Climate, topography, geology/soil, and land use/cover are factors influencing rate of soil erosion and are considered in estimating soil loss. This process could be under natural and/or accelerated condition. Probability of keeping the environment under natural condition is very limited. Totally removing soil loss for a specific site could be impractical but efforts can be done to bring human induced erosion and misuse of land to tolerable erosion level and sustainable utilization. Study area was the island of Sant’Antioco, Sardinia, which is a very interesting area for agricultural and geological point of view. A field survey was conducted to characterize the features detected on the imagery. As result, modelling erosion/deposition patterns does not allow the evaluation of actual sediment dynamics and time variations of these patterns, but just the relative strength/ intensity of the phenomena. However, it makes available a rational for the ranking of intervention priorities and maintains the possibility of comparing different management scenarios.

KEYWORDS: USPED; USLE; soil erosion; land degradation; Sant’Antioco; land evaluation.

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