Increasing Soil Organic Matter Content as a Key Factor for Sustainable Production of Sweet Pepper

Intensive agriculture under plastic houses need to increase organic soil matter for sustainable production to match demands of food security, especially under semi-arid Egyptian conditions. Climate change impacts on agricultural production and the need to mitigate green house’s gases (GHG’s) worked as a driving forces to pay more attention to soil organic matter content and to offer different methods (aerobic composting and vermicomposting) for recycling different organic wastes (agricultural residues and organic urban wastes). The study aimed to investigate increasing organic soil matter content in sandy soil by different rates and types of soil amendments as well as investigate their effects on vegetative growth and yield of sweet pepper using a split plot design with three replicates. The study was carried out during two growing autumn seasons of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 at El-Bossily farm, CLAC, Agricultural Research Center, Behaira Governorate, Egypt. Sweet pepper (Capsicum annum L.) cv. Godion F1 was the test crop and vermicompost, compost and cattle manure at the rates of 2, 4 and 6% (1.8, 3.6 and 5.4 m3/plastic house of 540m2) were the soil amendment treatments. Results obtained indicate that increasing rate of the different soil amendments from 1.8 to 5.4 m3/plastic house led to increase in vegetative growth and significantly enhanced early and total yield of sweet pepper. The highest values of stem diameter, total leaf area, yield and N, P were recorded by vermicompost, while cattle manure recorded the highest plant height, number of leaves and K contents (%). Vermicomposting of organic urban wastes and composting of agricultural residues to produce organic fertilizers instead of burning or incineration compared to cattle manure led to the sequestrating of CO2 in the soil by 605, 430 and 286 kg/ton and conserved nitrogen fertilizer by 17.1, 11.4 and 16.9 kg/ton of vermicompost, compost and cattle manure respectively. The use of vermicompost as a soil amendment at the rate of 4% gave the highest economic sweet pepper yield. Organic urban wastes could create a good source for producing soil amendment. Increasing organic soil matter content played a vital role in crop production.