Tolerance of brinjal to saline irrigation under drip and flood irrigation systems

Abstract

Arid region of Rajasthan, while, already faces problem of saline underground waters, rapidly declining water resources further add to its misery. Under such a situation, judicious use of irrigation water has, now a days, become  matter of concern for researchers. Development of technology for efficient and safer utilization of poor quality water for crop production is one of the thrust areas of research, as share of water allocation to agriculture is anticipated to reduce. It is well known that judicious use of poor quality saline ground waters is possible through micro-irrigation system. In case of drip, relatively small amount of irrigation water is applied at frequent interval and movement of salts in root zone take place at low leaching fraction pushing salts to periphery of wetting zone. As a result plants may experience low salinity stress compared surface irrigation. However, the degree of permissible water salinity for use in drip system depends on water quality, soil properties and salinity tolerance of particular crops. Drip irrigation is the most effective way to supply water and nutrients to the plant, which not only saves water but also increases yield of fruits and vegetable crops (Tiwari et al., 1998; Hatami et al.,2012; Nadiya et al., 2013; Iqbal et al., 2014). This water saving is because maximum amount of water is stored in the root zone and deep percolation losses are minimized (Singandhupe et al., 2007; Bhogi et al., 2011). There is meagre information on use of saline water in sandy soils of western Rajasthan under drip method of irrigation in vegetables. Considering these in view an investigation was undertaken of sandy soils with poor quality irrigation water, to study the efficiency of drip irrigation on brinjal