POLYMER ADDITION, MOISTURE DEPLETION AND THEIR EFFECT ON SOME WATER PARAMETERS OF GYPSUM SOIL AND CAULIFLOWER PRODUCTIVITY

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted in Al-Dawar area of ​​Ramadi district - Anbar Governorate - western Iraq in a Gypsiferous soil with a sandy clay loam texture during the fall season of 2023, to study the effect of adding polymer and moisture depletion on some Hydraulic standards of Gypsiferous soil and cauliflower productivity. The polymer was added by mixing based on the weight of the soil at addition rates of 0.2, 0.4% and irrigation was carried out at depletion rates of 30, 40, 50% of the water available for the plant. The experimental treatments were distributed according to a complete randomized block design in the order of split plots and with three replicates. The cauliflower crop, Nahar variety, was planted on 8/10/2023. The American evaporation Pan, class A, was used in the irrigation schedule. The saturated Hydraulic conductivity, Basic Infiltration Rate, water consumption, Application efficiency, and water use efficiency were calculated.

The study showed that the addition level of 0.4% polymer gave the best values ​​for Application efficiency and water use efficiency, reaching 95.27% and  62.64 kg.m^-3 respectively, while the lowest values ​​were for the averages of saturated Hydraulic conductivity and Basic Infiltration Rate at the same addition level, recording 9.57 and 9.17 cm.h^-1 respectively. Water consumption reached 46.92, 43.71 and 40.15 cm season^-1 at depletion rates of 30, 40 and 50% of the available water respectively. The irrigation treatment at depletion of 30% of the available water gave the best values ​​for saturated Hydraulic conductivity, Basic Infiltration Rate, Application efficiency, and water use efficiency, reaching 12.07 and 11.53 cm.h^-1 and 94.26% and 58.95 kg.m^-3 respectively.