Drainage management for problematic heavy clay soils in egypt

In Egypt, the increasing demands for food production require more attention for reclamation and cultivation of more agricultural areas. At present heavy clay areas in Egypt are either of poor or of low quality mainly due to development of salinity andsodicity problems, which hinder realization of the beneficial effects of any agricultural inputs. Therefore, more attention should be given to increase the productivity of heavyclay salt affected soils since they are potentially productive and require less investment, effort and time for restoring their productivity in comparison with new land reclamation.A general review and analysis of previous experiences in several related fields of the management of the problematic heavy clay soils and a measurement programme in selected field case studies were conducted. from the collected data it was clear that, theproblems in the heavy clay soils are not due to a single factor. Problems concern crop variety, water management, soil reclamation, soil improvement, soil fertility, drainagemanagement and socio-economic aspects. Hence, the management of problematic heavy clay areas should be a multi-disciplinary strategy and joint efforts between key persons who involved in this process.It was found that a large area of the heavy clay soils in Egypt is at the brink of high production. The present production levels have been reached since 1985. Before 1985 these areas remained essentially waterlogged, or wasteland or had fishponds as themain land use. After these years of comprehensive amelioration and tackling the key problems, there has been an accumulation of a lot of data on the research and rich practical experiences and formation of a comprehensive amelioration system for different types of saline-sodic heavy clay soil. The transfer of this knowledge fromconsultants & scientists to landowners and farmers represents the bottleneck for the development of heavy clay soil on the national level. Therefore, there is a need for an unconventional method to collect and transfer the knowledge and expertise in the problematic heavy clay management domain to the general responsible persons who are involved in this process.