Working Group 1

1. CLAY POT IRRIGATION AND PLANTING DENSITY EFFECT ON LETTUCE YIELD
Abubakari A-H., Nyarko G. and Maalinyuur Sheila
Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture. University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
Email: halim7us@yahoo.com
Introduction Results and Discussions
•Climate change and urbanisation are the most
•CPSI resulted in significantly higher
important drivers of changing quantity and
plant height than the watering can
quality of irrigation water
irrigation (Figure 1)
• Increased domestic and industrial uses of
•CPSI also resulted in higher fresh and
water is already generating huge quantities of
dry weight of leaves and roots than the
wastewater
watering can irrigation (Figure 2 & 3,
Table 1 and 2)
•52 % of farmers in Tamale, Ghana, depend on
either wastewater or grey water for all year
•The 15 cm x 15 cm spacing was
round vegetable production
Plate 2. Lettuce plants set up in CPSI, with
comparable with the 20 cm x 20 cm and
mosquito net to filter sediments Plate 3. lettuce under Water can irrigation the 30 cm x 30 cm in all parameters
•Feacal coliform (FC) and Total coliform (TC)
studied under CPSI
in Vegetables irrigated with wastewater in
Tamale was found to exceed the International
•The 15 cm x 15 cm spacing was superior
Commission for Microbiological Specification
to 20 cm x 20 cm and 30 cm x 30 cm in
for Food (103 faecal coliform g-1)
all parameters measured under watering
•Wastewater irrigation especially with watering can irrigation
can exposes vegetables to FC and heavy metals
•The superior performance of CPSI over
•WHO recommends treated wastewater for watering can irrigation may be due to the
irrigation, centralised treatment and other fact that CPSI release the water gradually
conventional treatment methods are expensive Figure 1. Effect of irrigation types and spacing Figure 2. Effect of irrigation types and spacing on allowing a more stable soil moisture
on plant height (bars = 2 x SED). fresh weight of leaves (bars = 2 x SED). regime than the watering can irrigation
•Low cost treatment include:
Clay pot sub-surface irrigation (CPSI) •The poor performance of the 20 cm x 20
Bucket kit irrigation cm and 30 cm x 30 cm under the watering
Good wastewater irrigation practices can irrigation may attributed to their
inability to effectively utilise all the water
provided
Objectives
•To determine the appropriate wastewater •Preliminary vegetative sample analysis
irrigation type and spacing on growth and of both CPSI and water can plots did not
yield of lettuce show the presence of either FC or TC on
lettuce leaves
•To determine the effectiveness of CPSI in
reducing the level of Feacal coliform (FC) and
Total coliform (TC) on wastewater irrigated Conclusions
lettuce •Clay pot irrigation with wastewater and
spacing of 15 cm x 15 cm significantly
Methodology enhanced lettuce growth and yield as was
•Irrigation type: CPSI and watering can reflected in parameters like plant height,
fresh and dry weight of leaves and roots
•Spacing (cm): 15 x 15, 20 x 20 and 30 x 30
•It was clear from the experiment that
•Treatments combinations: 6 yield parameters (fresh and dry biomass)
were increased significantly by Clay pot
•Replications: 3 irrigation and spacing of 15 cm x 15 cm
Plate 3. Lettuce grown under CPSI and ready for harvesting either acting independently or in
•Experimental Design: CRD combination
•Container capacity (cm): 50 diameter, 20 height
Recommendations
•Wastewater application: 500 ml of water daily
•Clay pot wastewater irrigation at a
spacing of 15 cm x 15 cm should be
•Study parameters:
adopted by poor urban farmers
Plant height , fresh weight and dry weight
• Further test should be carried out to
•Data Analysis
determine pathogen reduction by CPSI
ANOVA, using Genstat statistical package
Plant height, fresh and dry weight were square
Figure 3. Effect of irrigation types and spacing on fresh
Acknowledgement
root transformed to normalize the error
distribution before the analysis. weight of roots (bars = 2 x SED) International Foundation for Science
(IFS), Stockholm, Sweden supported this
Table 3. Effect of irrigation types and spacing Table 3. Effect of irrigation types and spacing
project through a grant to Mr. Abubakari
on the dry weight of leaves on the dry weight of roots
Abdul-Halim. Thanks to the CTA for
Irrigation 15 × 15 cm 20 × 20 cm 30 × 30 cm Irrigation 15 × 15 cm 20 × 20 cm 30 × 30 cm providing travel funds to present this
Clay pot 0.921 b 1.142 a 1.254 a Clay pot 0.1821 b 0.2431 a 0.2562 a paper at CTA 2010 Annual Seminar in
Water can 1.154 a 0.645 b 0.754 b Water can 0.2205 a 0.1520 b 0.1715 b Johannesburg, South Africa
F probability 0.044 0.044 0.044 F probability 0.008 0.008 0.008
SED 0.392 0.392 0.392 SED 0.0536 0.0536 0.0536
D.F 12 12 12 D.F 12 12 12
Plate 1. set up of CPSI REP 3 3 3 REP 3 3 3