3.2. Water movement in the soil
The irrigation water was applied to compensate the water deficiency of the root zone soil (0.30 m) in the first stage and the root zone soil (0.60 m) after, according to FAO (1998) for cucumber effective roots distribution zone, and monitored in 0.30 depths increment to 0.90 m after irrigation for each treatment. Monitoring the soil water content in the drip irrigated plots revealed that infiltration below 0.90 m depths was negligible especially in mulched plots compared with that of SI plots.