Recycling Rice Straw as an Amendment for Improving Soil Evaporation and Infiltration Rates in Sandy Soils

Document Type : Original Article

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Soil and Water Sciences Department, Faculty of Agriculture,Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

Laboratory Experiments were conducted on the effects of surface and incorporating different rates of rice straw (RS) on  evaporation rate and infiltration rate of  two sandy soils, differ in sand fraction less than 250 µm (coarse sand (S1) and,fine sand,  S2,) at three levels of RS application: 0.0, 1 and 2% on weight basis. It was observed that there was a significant effect as a result of adding different rates of rice straw (quantity or thickness of the layer), the addition methods of rice straw, percentage of the sand particles with a diameter less than 250 µm and the period between the drying and wetting cycles at p < 0.05 on both evaporation rate and accumulation evaporation of the two sandy soils at subjected to successive drying and wetting cycles (at different periods 4, 7, 11 days). Total cumulative infiltration in control (ZC), at 90 minutes, was reduced from 68.46 cm in S1 to 40.52 cm in S2( about 1.69 times) as the fraction of sand particles < 250 µm was increased from 47.44% in S1 to 72.08% in S2. The values of total cumulative infiltration, over 90 minutes, were reduced to 51.56 cm (24.7%) and 25.73 cm (62.4%) compared to the control treatment (68.46 cm) in sandy soil (S1) incorporated with1% and 2% of rice straw, respectively. The results showed that the incorporated 1% and 2% of rice straw with soil (S2) reduced total cumulative infiltration by 47.1% and 57.8% compared to control. The results showed that the incorporated 1% and 2% of rice straw with soil (S2) reduced total cumulative infiltration by 47.1% and 57.8% compared to control. The (Ib ) value was reached to 5.78 cm/hr (60% reduction compared to control) when S2 mixed with 2% of rice straw.

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