Economic valuation of irrigating tomato plants with agricultural drainage water remediated with DHS technology

Abstract

An economic evaluation of the effect of irrigating tomato plants with agricultural drainage water remediated with DHS technology was conducted in a field experiment at Rahawy, Giza governorate. According to the findings, Egypt's reuse of agricultural drainage water meets around 15% of its irrigation needs, while the overall expenses of remediating one cubic metre of agricultural drainage water using DHS technology reached LE 1.03. The volume of irrigation water used to grow tomato plants decreased by 5% in non-remediated soil ecosystems, 14% in soil ecosystems remediated by microbial inoculation and fortified by bentonite clay mineral, and 22% in soil ecosystems receiving a mix of clay minerals, rock phosphate, and sulphur and inoculated by Thiobacillus sps and phosphate dissolving bacteria PDB. the productivity of one feddan of tomato crop irrigated with non-remediated agricultural drainage water reached 11.31 tons per feddan, irrigation with agricultural drainage water increased tomato crop by about 31%, all studied indicators of the economic efficiency of tomato production grown in remediated soil ecosystem and irrigated with remediated agricultural drainage water were higher than their counterparts grown in non-remediated soil ecosystem and irrigated with non-remediated agricultural drainage water.