Evaluation of eco-biomass boards for improving soil water retention and crop productivity of carrots.

Abstract

Carrot is one of the most important economic grown vegetables. However, in Uganda, carrot productivity is low due to water stress and declining soil infertility. The application of sugar cane bagasse is an eco-friendly approach of improving soil moisture. This study was conducted to assess the impacts of Eco-biomass boards for improving water retention and productivity of carrots. The experiment was carried out at the research site of the department of Agricultural Mechanization and Irrigation (AMI), Busitema University. The experiment was performed in ports of 30cm by 30cm with three treatments and three replications for 4 months from 23rd /9/2022 to 13th/12/2022. The treatments were Control, E-R, E-R-I where E-R meant Eco-biomass boards under rain fed while E-R-I was Eco-biomass boards under rain fed with supplementary irrigation. Soil water use was measured by mass change and moisture sensors were placed at a depth of 5cm and 20cm in the pot bag to measure soil moisture and temperature in the soil. Additionally, weighing of pot bags using a weighing scale was done daily to determine the water stored in the soil in each pot. The result indicates that treatment with eco-boards had slightly high-water storage in pots compared to control with 36.2mm and 34.2mm respectively. It was observed at the yield weight of E-R treatment was slightly much higher than control. The size of the pots influenced on water applications since the crops had small area to extract water. Further crop evapotranspiration was estimated using pot mass which can be relatively new approach to enable farmers to know how much is required for irrigation without using modified Penman-Monteith equation of FAO. This works well with pot vegetable production and in greenhouse conditions.