Agricultural Sciences, 2020, 11, 191-209 https://www.scirp.org/journal/as ISSN Online: 2156-8561 ISSN Print: 2156-8553 Towards Expanding Quinoa Cultivation in Egypt: The Effect of Compost and Vermicompost on Quinoa Pests, Natural Enemies and Yield under Field Conditions Hala Adel Central Laboratory for Organic Agriculture, Agricultural Research Center, Cairo, Egypt How to cite this paper: Adel, H. (2020) Abstract Towards Expanding Quinoa Cultivation in Egypt: The Effect of Compost and Vermi- Increasing production and reducing pests’ population while preserving the compost on Quinoa Pests, Natural Enemies environment is an essential goal nowadays. New strategies are needed to and Yield under Field Conditions. Agri- achieve this goal, to bridge food gap and achieve food security. Quinoa is a cultural Sciences, 11, 191-209. promising crop and could partially substitute wheat in baked products and https://doi.org/10.4236/as.2020.112012 assist in overcoming wheat gap in Egypt. This study aimed to identify pests Received: January 31, 2020 and their natural enemies in quinoa plantation, the population dynamics of Accepted: February 21, 2020 both and the effect of compost and vermicompost fertilization on pests’ pop- Published: February 24, 2020 ulation and quinoa yield under field conditions. The study was carried out in El Giza Research Station of the Agricultural Research Centre—Egypt, from Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. November till March, in two successive seasons, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. This work is licensed under the Creative The experiment was set up in a complete randomized block design. Variety Commons Attribution International Masr 1 was tested and yellow sticky traps were used to monitor insects’ num- License (CC BY 4.0). bers. Three main pests were detected: Aphis craccivora, Empoasca. decipiens http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and Bemisia tabaci. The most common pest was aphids followed by potato Open Access leafhoppers. Compost fertilized quinoa attracted fewer pests and resulted in less yield compared to vermicompost. Parasitoids appeared earlier than pre- dators and their numbers were the highest throughout the two seasons. Pests’ and natural enemies’ peaks were determined to facilitate IPM interventions. It is recommended to use vermicompost in quinoa production rather than compost, as it increased yield, provided that an IPM strategy is implemented in which natural enemies are the main players. Further investigations are needed to understand the interaction between predators and parasitoids in quinoa field in order to maximize the benefit of their existence in IPM programs. Keywords Quinoa, Organic Fertilization, Pests, Parasitoids, Predators, Population Dynamics DOI: 10.4236/as.2020.112012 Feb. 24, 2020 191 Agricultural Sciences H. Adel 1. Introduction Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa Wilid.) is one of the goosefoot family members (Chenopodiaceae) [1]. It was selected by FAO as one of the crops destined to of- fer food security in the next century [2]. Quinoa is a grain that has exceptional characteristics, i.e. it is gluten-free, has high nutritional value properties with an average of 14.8% protein and an extraordinary balance between starch, oil and protein [3]. Its high protein contents strengthen the immune system and assist in fighting various diseases including cancer [4]. Quinoa is also high in lysine value, in addition to manganese, magnesium, iron and vitamin B2 that are es- sential for growth, metabolism, and enzymes functions in the body [5] [6] [7]. Egypt has an area of about 1 million km2, most of which is under arid and hy- per-arid climatic conditions; only 3% is used in agricultural production [8]. Ac- cording to Jacobsen et al. [9], no crop other than quinoa can resist the combina- tion of adverse factors, and therefore, a national campaign to expand the cultiva- tion of quinoa has been launched by the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture [10] due to its adaptability to adverse climate and soil conditions [11], in addition to its tolerant to drought and salinity [12] and its low production cost attributed to the low inputs and labor needed. Quinoa, therefore, can play a key role in food production in Egyptian reclaimed desert lands [13]. It is hoped also that this in- itiative will reduce the country’s dependence on wheat imports. Historically, quinoa was first introduced in Egypt in 2005, being first cultivated in South Si- nai. The cultivated area of quinoa has reached more than 80 feddans (1 feddan = 0.42 hectare) in the period since 2010 [10]. Despite all these advantages, quinoa is attacked by a wide variety of insect pests that can cause damage during its different life stages and even in storage as stated by Oelke et al. [14]. Reports from Northern and Southern Europe identi- fied Aphis fabae L. (Homoptera Aphididae) and leafhoppers (Homoptera Cica- dellidae) as pests causing injury in quinoa [15] [16]. Furthermore, Tawfik et al. [17] identified aphids, Tuta absoluta and cotton leaf worm as pests attacking quinoa plants in different places in Egypt and caused considerable yield damage. Organic crops proved to be more tolerant/resistant to insect infestation [18]. The same conclusion was mentioned by Altieri et al. [19] who stated that organic farming practices offer balanced nutrition to crops and thus they become less sus- ceptible to insect pests and diseases. Not only insect’s pests are affected by the type of fertilization but also the natural enemies of those pests [20]. Vermicompost has been advocated as good organic manure for use in integrated management prac- tices in field crops. Vermicompost not only increases organic carbon status of the soils but also increases soil water holding capacity, flocculation of soil and availability of nutrients and thus improves soil and crop production sustainabil- ity [21] In addition, fertilization with compost showed higher values in most quality traits of biomass in quinoa crop other than synthetic fertilizers [22]. In comparing the effect of compost and vermicompost on Amaranthus viridis production; Islam et al. [23] found that vermicompost application gave higher DOI: 10.4236/as.2020.112012 192 Agricultural Sciences H. Adel result for growth, yield indices and nutrient content than the conventional aero- bic compost. In the present investigation, the two organic fertilizers were chosen as they provide all nutrients in readily available forms and also enhance uptake of nutrients by plants and play a major role in improving growth and yield of different field crops [24]. Consequently, this study aimed to identify pests at- tacking quinoa crop under Egyptian conditions, the population dynamics of these pests together with their natural enemies in relation to the fertilization with compost and vermicompost. In addition, the effect of these two organic fer- tilizers on quinoa production yield was also investigated. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Experiment Location The present study was carried out in El Giza Research Station affiliated to the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC)—Egypt. El Giza Governorate is located on the west bank of the Nile, 4.9 km southwest of central Cairo on 30.01˚N latitudes and 31.21˚E longitude. A soil analysis test was carried out in the Soil, Water and Environment Research Institute, ARC, to identify the soil properties in the expe- rimental area. The analysis showed that the soil is clay with 36.3% clay, 37.6% silt and 26.1% sand. Percentages of organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and po- tassium were 1, 0.003, 0.001 and 0.03, respectively. Soil pH was 7.73 whereas EC, wilting point and field capacity recorded 0.5 ds/m, 20.2% and 43.8%, respectively. 2.2. Experiment Date and Weather Conditions The study extended from November till March, in two successive seasons, 2016/2017 and 2017/2018. Quinoa was sown on 20th of November of each sea- son. Weather conditions including average temperature, average relative humid- ity, precipitation and average wind speed were daily recorded with the assistance of colleagues in the Central Laboratory for Agricultural Climate, ARC (Table 1). The climate is arid, characterized by no precipitation during the experiment pe- riod, relative humidity was moderate most of the time and wind speed was light as it did not exceed 0.8 m/sec. 2.3. Organic Fertilizers Two types of fertilizers were used, i.e. compost and vermicompost made up of plant wastes and cattle manure (in case of vermicompost the earth worm Eisenia foetida was used). Both fertilizers were provided by the Central Laboratory of Organic Agriculture (CLOA), ARC. Compost and vermicompost were incorpo- rated in the soil before sowing quinoa at rates of 5 and 4 m3/feddan, respectively (1 feddan = 0.42 hectare). Table 2 and Table 3 present the compost and vermi- compost analyses that were carried out in CLOA. 2.4. Design and Cultivation Treatments were arranged in a complete randomized block design. There were DOI: 10.4236/as.2020.112012 193 Agricultural Sciences H. Adel Table 1. Weather conditions during the experimental period (November-March) in the two seasons 2016-17 and 2017-18. Season 2016/2017 Aver. wind Aver. Aver. relative Precipitation Months speed [m/sec] temperature (˚C) humidity [%] sum [mm] November 0.6 20.3 59.4 0.0 December 0.5 14.7 61.4 0.0 January 0.6 14.0 59.2 0.0 February 0.8 16.1 57.6 0.0 March 0.8 19.1 53.1 0.0 Season 2017/2018 November 0.7 20.4 57.6 0.0 December 0.6 18.1 62.6 0.0 January 0.7 16.2 57.1 0.0 February 0.4 17.5 59.3 0.2 March 0.6 21.2 48.0 0.0 Table 2. Results of compost analysis. Parameters and Minerals pH Fe (1:10) ds/m OC % N % P % K % Ca % Mg % Moist % Org.