Effect of varying sand percentage in sheath of nature-based capillary barriers composite on water storage capacity and okra growth in arid climate

Agricultural development in many arid countries including Oman is limited due to water scarcity which is currently exacerbated with increasing demand due to rapid population growth, economic development, and mismanagement of water resources. Impact of climate change is expected to adversely impact the water resources. Therefore, finding new efficient, environmentally friendly, and affordable water-saving techniques in agronomy is a necessity for achieving agricultural sustainability. Irrigation water can be saved by creating capillary barriers (CB) to unsaturated moisture flow. In this study, a “nature-inspired capillary barrier design” called hereafter as Smart Capillary Barrier (SCB) (mosaic of fine textured blocks, made of silt loam, and sandy sheath surrounding the blocks) was tested in series of field experiments with soil columns and pots. We investigated the effect of the percentage of sand of the sheath on water storage capacity of the SCB blocks and growth of okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) under deficit irrigation. Three proportions of sand to silt loam (sand%:silt loam%) in the sheaths were used in this study, SCB-25 (25:75%), SCB-50 (50:50%) and SCB-75 (75:25%). Our results show that increasing the percentage of sand in the designed and constructed SCB composite reduces evaporative and drainage water losses and therefore increases the water storage capacity of the blocks. Our SCB-75 attains 1.7–1.3 smaller drying rate than that for SCB-25 and SCB-50, respectively. Therefore, this composite had higher water saving capacity than a homogeneous soil (no capillary barrier) and a soil with a standard sand mulch (coarse soil overlies fine soil). The study found that using SCB composite did not consistently have a clear effect on the growth of okra plants at all stages of their development. However, during the development stage, using SCB-75 resulted in significantly higher dry biomass of the plants compared to using a homogeneous soil (the control). Additionally, during the initial stage of fruit yield, using SCB-75 also resulted in significantly higher fruit yield compared to using a homogeneous soil. Application of our SCB composite is a promising approach for saving water in desertic farming.