Increasing Land and Water Use Efficiencies of Wheat: Case Study of Egypt

Wheat is the most important food crop in Egypt as it is used in bread making. However, the amounts of wheat produced every year are not enough to meet the total local consumption of the Egyptian. In this chapter, we reviewed the Egyptian breeding efforts in producing resilient wheat cultivars. It has been reported that 50 wheat cultivars (bread and durum) were released between 1947 and 2012, where they are tolerant to different biotic and abiotic stresses. For example, Giza-168 cultivar is resistant to rusts, as well as tolerating water and heat stresses and Gemmeiza-12 cultivar is resistant to rusts and tolerate to heat stress. Several improved management practices to increase wheat production were reviewed, namely reducing the reliance on chemical fertilizer in wheat production by application of organic fertilizer, legume crops preceding wheat, and wheat intercropping systems with legume crops. Moreover, the advantage of intercropping fahl clover with wheat was presented in a field study, where fahl clover was intercropped with wheat, in three planting densities (PD) (15, 25, and 35%, PD) under three cultivation methods (basins, furrows and raised beds). The results indicated that the highest wheat yield was obtained with 15% fahl clover PD intercropped with wheat on raised beds. The highest values of water consumptive use, soil available nitrogen and percentage of organic matter were obtained with 35% fahl clover PD intercropped with wheat on raised beds. The highest values of land and water equivalent ratios were obtained with 25% fahl clover PD intercropped with wheat on raised beds. Thus, inclusion of legume crop in wheat-base cropping system by intercropping could attain the sustainable use of land by increasing soil available nitrogen and organic matter. It attained the sustainable use of water by using the applied water to wheat to produce both fahl clover and wheat. Furthermore, it increased land productivity through increasing wheat yield, compared to wheat sole cultivation and produce two crops on the same piece of land.