The experiments concerning the irrigation of three crops (a cereal, a forage crop and an oil–bearing crop) with the final effluent of a plant consisting of a facultative pond treating urban wastewater are described. Control plots were irrigated with potable water and given commercial fertilizers. The results of three years of experiments concerning the crop yields, crop quality both chemical and microbiological are presented.

The slightly better crop yield obtained in the plots effluent irrigated lead to the conclusion that the nitrogen content of the facultative pond effluent can replace the nitrogen from commercial fertilizers; subsequent fertilizer savings ranged from US$ 228/ha to US$ 533/ha. Crop composition shows very little or no change due to effluent irrigation. Crop contamination was virtually nil.

Crop, effluent, facultative pond, irrigation, maize, reuse, sorghum, sunflower, wastewater, yield
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© IWA Publishing 1992
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