Productive and Water Merit of the Most Important Varieties of Rice in the Arab Republic of Egypt

The Ministry of Agriculture strategy aims to optimizing the use of agricultural resources and increasing the agricultural productivity of the land and water units.
Given the limited share of natural water resources in Egypt which is about 55.5 billion cubic meters, in addition to the limited quantities of groundwater and the lack of rain, the agricultural development strategy aims to rationalize the uses of irrigation water in agriculture for various crops, especially the rice crop.
Since the rice crop is consumes alone about 30% of the total consumption of summer crops. Therefore, the rice research program, starting in 1990, aimed to develop short-lived and high-yield varieties to provide a large part of the irrigation water estimated at 20-30%.
The research aims to assess the land and water productivity of rice crop varieties among farmers in the year 2020, so that it can help in developing a realistic strategy for the varieties that achieve the highest productivity with optimal use of irrigation water.
The research problem is that although old, low-productivity and voracious varieties for consuming water have been replaced by new, high-yield and water-saving varieties of rice, the rice crop is still seen as consuming large amounts of irrigation water, which negatively affects other crops and thus affects the horizontal expansion of agricultural crops.
Many of the rice growers have not yet achieved the economic yield, and the Bulletin of statistics focus on calculating the productivity of the feddan without caring about the water productivity of the rice crop.
The research was based on objective methods based on the principle of sampling and actual measurement known as Crop Cuting.
The most important results:
First: The relative importance of the rice crop varieties in 2020:
The total area of the rice crop in 2020 was about 1.1 million feddans, about 84% of which were for the Giza 178 (30.7%) variety, followed by the Sakha 101 (25.2%), then the Giza 177 (14.3%) variety, then the Sakha 104 (14.2%) variety, and the rest of the variety occupied about 15% only.
The productivity of Rice this year was estimated at 3.74 tons/feddan, with a standard error of about 0.0117 ton/feddan (0.31% of the average). Accordingly, the total production of the rice crop in 2020 amounted to about 4.19 million tons.
Second: The Productive and Water Efficiency of the most Important Varieties of the Rice Crop:
1-    Short-lived varieties (120-125 days): irrigation water consumption is between 3500-5350 cubic meters per feddan. The area of short-lived varieties reached about 0.233 million feddans, representing about 20.86% of the total rice area. the average production was estimated at 3.619 tons/feddan, with a standard error of about 0.023 ton/feddan. The average consumption of short-lived varieties of irrigation water was about 4742 cubic meters per feddan. The average production per cubic meter of water was about 0.7630 kg/m3.
The most important high-productivity and water-saving varieties in this category, arranged in descending according to productivity as follows: Sakha super 300, Giza 179, Giza 177, Sakha 107, and Sakha 106.
2-    Medium-lived varieties (130-140 days): irrigation water consumption ranged between 5495-5980 cubic meters per feddan. The area of medium-lived varieties reached about 0.885 million feddans, representing about 79.14% of the total area of the rice crop in 2020. The productivity of these varieties was estimated at about 3.755 ton/feddan of rice, with a sampling error of about 0.014 ton/feddan by about 0.361%. The average consumption of the medium- lived varieties of irrigation water was about 5733 cubic meters per feddan. The average production per cubic meter of water was about 0.655 kg/m3.
The most important high-productivity and water-saving varieties in this category, arranged in descending according to productivity as follows: Sakha 108, Giza 178, Hybrid 1, Sakha 101, then Sakha 104.
Third: The gap between the productivity of rice crop varieties for farmers and the data of the rice research program:
The gap between the productivity of rice crop growers compared to the data of the rice research program was between 1-2 ton/feddan on average, this deficit means the possibility of increasing productivity and production rice crop by following the recommendations of the rice research program and increasing the effectiveness of Agricultural Guidance.
Fourth: Water ration and consumption of the rice crop from irrigation water:
According to the data of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, the water ration of the rice crop amounted to about 6563 cubic meters per feddan and that the consumption of the rice crop amounted to about 7.9 billion cubic meters, representing about 33.9% of the total consumption of summer crops.
While the new short- and medium-lived varieties reduced the average water ration to about 5238 cubic meters per feddan, which resulted in a decrease in the quantities of water used from the rice crop in 2020 to about 5.859 billion cubic meters. The expansion of the cultivation of short-lived varieties could save an additional 4 billion cubic meters