Abstract
A field study was carried out in a saline-sodic non gypsiferous loam soil in the Mona Project area with watertable ranging between 8-188 cm. The ground water EC and SAR ranged from 1.30-3.15 dS m'l and 5.10-18.20. Wheat-sorghum crop rotation was followed during the experiment. The fertilizers applied to wheat and sorghum crops were 120:80:30 and 90:45:0 kg ha'l NPK, respectively. Irrigation treatments were: irrigation at 40% depletion of soil available soil moisture (Tl) : irrigation at 80% depletion of available soil moisture (T2) and Fallow plot with no irrigation (T3). The infiltratisn rate of soil was significantly higher in Tl compared with T2 and T3 and the increase, on an average, for Tl and T2 over T3 was 67 and 38%, respectively. The ECe decreased in 0-15 cm (85 and 75%) and 15-30 cm (41 and 17%) in Tl and T2, respectively but increased in fallow plot (78 and 291%) in 0-15 and 15-30 cm depths, depicting the salt movement in relation to delta of water applied. At 30-60 cm soil depth minor increase was observed in both the irrigation treatments but at 60-90 cm soil depth the trend was somewhat similar to that of the upper two soil depths. Like the ECe, SAR decreased by 77 and 71 % in upper 0-15 cm depth and 26 and 15% in 15-30 cm depth for Tl and T2, respectively. In 30-60 cm soil depth slight increase was found with Tl whereas in other treatments it decreased. But at 60-90 cm the trend was like that of upper two depths. The wheat grain yield was significantly lower (41 %) with T2 than that with Tl, whereas nonsignificant difference (31 % reduction) existed in these treatments in case of sorghum fodder yield.
