Abstract
For sustainable crop production, changing the soil or water chemistry so as to counter the adverse effects of brackish water is good option. This is normally accomplished by soil- or water- applied amendments such as gypsum. The other option is of blending or cycling saline and non-saline waters, which has merits to reduce the potential hazards. The biological/organic amendments improve soil physical conditions, which are expected to deteriorate by the use of brackish water. A field experiment was conducted on a non saline-non sodic sandy loam soil (ECc = 1.31-1.76 dS m', pl-l, 8,47-8.61. SAR 5.50-7,4 L infiltration rate = 0.6-0.8 cm n', bulk density = 1.56-1.61 Mg m" for the upper 15 cm soil depth) to evaluate the growth response ofcotton crop to different soil and water treatments. Treatments included: 1'1 (canal water). T1 (tube well water having LC .cc 3.38 dS m', SAR ~ 16,43 and RSC" 5.57 rnmol, L'I), 1', (cyclic use, i.e. one canal and one tube well water). 1'1(tube well water as such j. FYM @ 25 Mg ha' annually) and 1'; (tube well water + gypsum @ water gypsum requirement. i.c. decrease of WRSC to about (0). During the first year of experimentation. seed cotton yield was not significantly affected by the applied treatments and was in the order: 1', > T, > 1'1> T; > T1 . The number of boils picked per plant was in the order: 1'2 T.j 1'1 1', > 1', and differed non-significantly. The wheat grain yield was significantly affected by the treatments and the order was 1'1 :> 1',' 1',•.T1 T2 . The EC and SAR increased after wheat 2001-02 harvest. While pl-l, was not increased over the original respective values. Key words: Management. brackish water. blending, cycling, amendment
