Salt Dynamics and Budgeting in the Root Zone of Wheat under Irrigated Saline Environment

Plant growth is adversely affected by salt deposition in the root zone and requires judicious irrigation water management for enhancing productivity in an irrigated saline environment. To study the salt deposition and subsequent leaching of salts below the root zone of wheat, an experiment with four wheat cultivars (viz. three salt-tolerant KRL-210 (V), KRL-1-4 (V), and 12one salt non-tolerant HD- 2894 (V) were taken for the experiment under artificially prepared 4-1-1-1irrigation water with salinity levels of 4 dS m(S), 8 dS m(S) and 12 dS m(S) besides the 234-1varying salinity of the groundwater from 1.45 to 1.7 dS m(S) during rabiseasons of 2009-10 and 12010-11 at the research farm of Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, India. -1 The soil salinity (EC) was 0.2 dS mbefore the conduction of the experiment during rabi 2009-1:2-1 10 and varied from 0.26 to 0.95 dS mduring rabi2010-11. The total salt-induced in soil was 70.15 -1-1 t haand 55.6 t hafor rabi2009-10 and 2010-11 respectively by saline irrigation water. The salt -1deposition in the crop root zone was observed at maximum (i.e., 17.04 and 22.97 t ha during rabi2009-10 and 2010-11, respectively) for Streated plots and minimum in Streatment levels. 41The production functions for wheat varieties were developed and the coefficient of 2determination (R) was 0.98 to 0.99 and 0.94 for salt-tolerant and salt non-tolerant varieties, respectively. Moreover, it was also estimated that the maximum salt was deposited on the top soil layer (15cm) and the leaching of salts from S, S, Sand Streatments levels was 65%, 63%, 123,452%, and 48% salts, respectively from the root zone. However, this study would assist in the computation of leaching requirements for enhancing productivity in irrigated saline environments.