Throughout the last decade, and particularly in 2022, water scarcity has become a critical concern in Morocco and other Mediterranean countries. The lack of rainfall during spring was worsened by a succession of heat waves during the summer. To address this drought, innovative solutions, including the use of new technologies such as hydrogels, will be essential to transform agriculture. This paper presents the findings of a study that evaluated the impact of hydrogel application on onion (Allium cepa) cultivation in Meknes, Morocco. The treatments investigated in this study comprised two different types of hydrogel-based soil additives (Arbovit® polyacrylate and Huminsorb® polyacrylate), applied at two rates (30 and 20 kg/ha), and irrigated at two levels of water supply (100% and 50% of daily crop evapotranspiration; ETc). Two control treatments were included, without hydrogel application and with both water amounts. The experiment was conducted in an open field using a completely randomized design. The results indicated a significant impact of both hydrogel-type dose and water dose on onion plant growth, as evidenced by various vegetation parameters. Among the hydrogels tested, Huminsorb® Polyacrylate produced the most favorable outcomes, with treatment T9 (100%, HP, 30 kg/ha) yielding 70.55 t/ha; this represented an increase of 11 t/ha as compared to the 100% ETc treatment without hydrogel application. Moreover, the combination of hydrogel application with 50% ETc water stress showed promising results, with treatment T4 (HP, 30 kg, 50%) producing almost the same yield as the 100% ETc treatment without hydrogel while saving 208 mm of water.

Morocco is one of the countries who’s facing an insufficient water supply for irrigation, therefore it is seeking for new technologies allowing irrigation management evolution. Deficit irrigation is for this reason one of the recommended approaches to deal with this alarming situation. This study deals with the assessment of Sustainable Deficit Irrigationon potatoes production (Var. Desiree). The experiment was conducted on an experimental plot in open field in Morocco. Three water regimes were applied: T1control (100%), T2 (75%) and T3 (50%) of crop evapotranspiration ETc. This is a complete random block device with four repetitions. Measurements focused on monitoring vegetative, ecophysiological and yield parameters. The results obtained show that: (i)the irrigation regime did not significantly affect the eco-physiological parameters nor the vegetative parameters, except for the height of the plants; (ii) in terms of yield, a deficit of less than 25% of ETc did not lead to a significant difference compared to the control treatment and reached 41, 17 tones/ha compared to the 100% ETc with 42, 51 t/ha; (iii) irrigated treatments at less than 50% of daily ETc revealed extreme yield loss (20, 96 Tonnes/ha);(iv) finally, the best agronomic water use efficiency was recorded for irrigated treatments at 75% of Etc.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of different restricted irrigation strategies on peach trees. Sustainable and regulated deficit irrigation treatments were applied during the 2018/2019 production season in a commercial plot of “Bénédicte” variety located at the Atlas Mountain’s region of Morocco. Five different treatments were tested: T1, T2 and T3 with an application of respectively 125% (over-irrigation), 100% (control) and 75% (deficit-irrigation) of Crop Water Requirement (CWR) throughout the whole crop cycle; These treatments were classified under Sustainable Deficit Irrigation treatments (SDI). Regulated Deficit Irrigation treatments (RDI) comprising of treatments T4, and T5 which correspond respectively to applications of 75% ETc and 50% ETc during the pit hardening stage (PH), and 100% ETc during the rest of the cycle. The results showed that deficient irrigation treatments had no effect on vegetative growth parameters.A downward trend in average fruit weight and size at harvest was observed in the T3 treatment. A significant increase in sugar content was observed in T3 and T5 compared to the control T2. With regard to biochemical parameters, the deficient treatment (T5) recorded the highest proline content in response to water stress, followed by T3 and T4. Therewas no significant difference between the crop yields under SDI and RDI treatments, but T4 produced arelatively higher yield of 47 T/Haamong the treatments.Thisled to the water use efficiency (WUE) performance ranking: T3 with 10.63 kg/m3, T4 (75% PH) was in second place with a WUE of 9.6 kg/m3, finally T5 with an efficiency of 9.35 kg/m3.