English 
Background
Rainfall harvesting in arid regions and semi-arid regions increases soil water availability for plant during the growing season, thus increasing crop production. Jordan is facing the most serious water shortages in the Middle East. It is an arid country located east of the Jordan River with a land area of about 90,000-km. Contour stone terraces have been widely used by Jordanian farmers in the hilly areas for soil and water conservation purposes. Traditionally, farms’ soil is subjected to systematic deep plowing to break up the surface rocks and then remove stones for installation of stone terraces. A new land reclamation method for water harvesting has been experimented in the hilly parts of Jordan that improves the effectiveness of traditional stone terraces. The method consists of designing semi-circular stone bunds randomly based on the micro topography of land. Semi-circular bunds were located at areas having deep soil pockets and adequate runoff rocky area and do not require deep plowing with minimum land disturbance. This method minimizes soil erosion, maximizes rainfall harvesting due to the high runoff efficiency from runoff rocky areas, and promotes biodiversity. The cost of this method is about 85% less than that of the traditional stone terraces used by Jordanian farmers. Field evaluations showed that semi-circular bunds increased soil moisture in the cropping areas by about 7% compared to control areas. The soil depth in some of the cropping terraced areas increased by about 3 cm at the end of the 2003/2004 rainy season.
Aims
The aim of this study is to evaluate the growth and yield of two zucchini varieties under rainfed conditions with partial irrigation using two irrigation systems, namely pitcher irrigation and drip irrigation, operated on gravity.
Methods
A complete block design experiment was carried out in the field having deep clay soil and of 250-m2 area. Two varieties of Zucchini (Amira F1 hybrid and Anita F1 Hybrid) and two irrigation systems (automated drip system and pitcher irrigation) were used in the experiment plus a control in triplicates. The experiment was conducted under rainfed conditions with partial irrigation during the hot months of the season.
Methods
A complete block design experiment was carried out in the field having deep clay soil and of 250-m2 area. Two varieties of Zucchini (Amira F1 hybrid and Anita F1 Hybrid) and two irrigation systems (automated drip system and pitcher irrigation) were used in the experiment plus a control in triplicates. The experiment was conducted under rainfed conditions with partial irrigation during the hot months of the season.
Results
Partial irrigation increased the average zucchini yield for both varieties by about 18% compared to rainfed more so for the drip irrigation. However, experimental results revealed that the influence of variety was more significant than partial irrigation. The fruit yield and dry matter yield of Amira F1 Hybrid (Z1) under rainfed condition were 3783 kg/D (D: Donum = 1000 m2) and 479 kg/D compared to 2298 kg/D and 292 kg/D for variety Anita F1 Hybrid (Z2), respectively. Higher differences between Z1 and Z2 were observed in the case of partial irrigation. For pitcher irrigation, the fruit yield and dry matter yield of Z1 were 87% and 68% higher than Z2. Whereas, in the case of drip irrigation, the corresponding increases of Z1 compared to Z2 were 83% and 91%. Similar trend between the two varieties was obtained for the number of fruit per plant except that the number of fruit for plant grown with pitcher irrigation, 12.2/plant, was slightly higher, P<0.15, than drip irrigation of 9.9 fruit/plant.
Conclusion
The yield of zucchini cultivation in drylands increased significantly with partial irrigation during the hot months of the growing season and also by choosing appropriate cultivars.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ARID LANDS
DESERT TECHNOLOGY XV
