Yield Responses of Winter (Rabi) Forage Crops to Irrigation With Saline Drainage Water

Abstract

A field experiment in an alluvial sandy loam saline soil was conducted during the winter (rabi ) season from 1997-98 to 1999-2000 at the Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, Hisar, to study the effect of saline drainage water (EC = 3.6 -7.4) on five (rabi ) forage crops: oat (Avena sativa), rye grass (Lolium rigidum), senji (Indian clover) (Melilotus indica) berseem (Egyptian clover) (Trifolium alexandrinum) and shaftal (Persian clover) (Trifolium resupinatum). All the crops were established using canal water as pre-sowing irrigation and the various irrigation strategies were imposed subsequently. Irrigation with canal water resulted in a 115 % increase in forage yield compared with the saline drainage water. The results suggested that alternate irrigation with saline drainage water increased the yields of all the forage crops compared with using saline drainage water only. Further, alternate irrigation, starting with canal water, was superior to alternate irrigation starting with saline drainage water because less salt was added in total. Oat produced the largest green-forage yield (32.3 t ha −1 ) in the first year while rye grass gave its maximum in the second (34.6 t ha −1 ) and third years (37.0 t ha −1 ). Persian clover performed better than did Egyptian clover in all the three years. Interaction between species and irrigation treatments was significant. In comparison with canal irrigation water, there was a 36 %, 42 %, 54 %, 68 %, and 85 % yield reduction in rye grass, oat, Persian clover, Egyptian clover and senji, respectively when only saline drainage water was used for irrigation reflecting their relative tolerances of salinity. Yields declined linearly for all crops with increases in the quantity of salt applied. I N T RO D U C T I O NSaline soils are widespread in the arid to semi-arid parts of the world, including in the Indian states of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, where the mean annual rainfall is generally less than 550 mm. It has been estimated that 17 % of the total irrigated area in India is affected by salt (Ghassemi et al., 1995). These soils generally have a shallow saline water table and often remain waterlogged or submerged for quite a long time. As a result, crop production on these soils becomes extremely difficult, yields are very low and cultivation becomes uneconomical. The Hisar district of Haryana, (29 • 10 N; 75 • 46 E, 215 m asl) represents such a situation with an annual precipitation of 425 mm.For successful crop production on such soils, leaching, together with sub-surface drainage, is required to flush out the salts from the root zone. Disposal of the saline

Cyclic use of saline and non-saline water to increase water use efficiency and soil sustainability on drip irrigated maize in a semi-arid region

“…Conjunctive use of saline and fresh water for irrigation allows the utilization of poor quality surface water and/or groundwater resources with freshwater (Rhoades, 1987;Sharma & Rao, 1998;Crescimanno et al, 2002;Datta & Jong, 2002;Yadav et al, 2004;Kaur et al, 2007). Blending and cyclic use are two options adopted when coordinating the use of water with different qualities (Rhoades et al, 1992;Wichelns et al, 2002;Hamilton et al, 2007;Dudley et al, 2008;Kulkarni, 2011).…”

Fodder production and soil health with conjunctive use of saline and good quality water in ustipsamments of a semi‐arid region

“…The adverse impact of poor quality water use on soil health depends on soil texture and climatic conditions (Singh and Poonia, 1980). This adverse impact on soil health and crop production could be mitigated to some extent by conjunctive use of good and poor quality water in cyclic mode (Bradford and Letey, 1992;Yadav et al, 2004). Hence, the present investigation was carried out to quantify the impact of conjunctive use of saline water on different fodder production systems, their quality and certain physico-chemical properties of loamy-sand soils of semi-arid zone under monsoonal climate.…”

Poor quality water utilization for agricultural production: An environmental perspective

“…The mixing is possible in areas where good quality water can be made available in adequate quantities at the time of its requirement. Several researchers compared mixing and cyclic uses of two quality waters and concluded that higher irrigation efficiency can be achieved with cyclic use when good quality water is applied at the initial stages and poor quality water is used at the later stages when plants can tolerate the salts better (Bradford and Letey, 1992;Naresh et al, 1993;Yadav et al, 2004). The use of poor quality water for crop production in arid regions was reported by Ben-Gal et al (2009).…”