Enhancing spearmint productivity and water use efficiency under alternative planting practices

Abstract

Egypt faces water scarcity to meet the increasing demand. Therefore, better management of irrigation water for crops assumes high priority among which spearmint is a high water demanding plant. Hence, the current study was undertaken at the medicinal and aromatic research department experimental farm, El-Kanater El- Khairiya, Egypt. It is intended to investigate the effect of different planting practices “raised bed, furrows and convention” on yield productivity and water saving, under three irrigation treatments “120%, 100% and 80% of ETo”. The results of two seasons 2016 and 2017 showed that the best vegetative growth and fresh herb yield were obtained using raised bed followed by furrows then conventional planting method under 100% ETo. Essential oil was increased up to 0.7% at 100% ETo under raised bed. It was observed that when compared to planting using conventional methods at 120% ETo, under 80% ETo spearmint yield was increased by about 8.76% and 26.14% for furrows and raised bed in the first season, second season showed same trend. In addition, raised bed under 80% of irrigation applied water produced the maximum amount of water saved when compared to conventional at 120% ETo being 36.14 and 48.38% for 1st and 2nd season, respectively.

Keywords

• alternative planting practices
• Mentha spicata
• Spearmint
• water use efficiency