2022 Volume 32 Issue 3 Pages 111
In drylands, the progress of salt accumulation due to excessive irrigation and poor drainage has negatively affected agricultural production. Water-saving and improvement of drainage system are effective to prevent salt accumulation. However, the introduction of drip irrigation and subsurface drainage requires initial and maintenance costs, making it difficult for farmers in developing countries.
As a low-cost and easy technique to improve drainage function, a new subsoil breaker called “cut-soiler”, was developed in Japan, which fills crop residues at 40-60 cm depth in soil and that works as a drainage. The cut-soiler has been designed to contribute to the improvement of poor drainage fields in Japan. However, its applicability to salinity control in dryland is unknown. The purpose of this study was to experimentally demonstrate the use of cut-soiler at a salt affected field in India.
An experiment was carried out to evaluate the cut-soiler’s effect to remediate saline soil by using lysimeter facilities (2 m square each) with and without cut-soiler plots during the dry and rainy seasons from October 2018 to August 2019. The soil salinity (EC) was continuously monitored by dielectric soil moisture sensors (5TE) in order to comprehend its dynamics by cut-soiler. The maximum EC at the depth of 12 cm with cut-soiler was 18.7% lower than without cut-soiler during the dry season when it was irrigated. In the rainy season, the EC at the depth of 50 cm (filled depth by crop residue) with cut-soiler was decreased in response to rainfall, and the EC with cut-soiler was 38.2% lower than without cut-soiler. Based on these results, it is concluded that the salts in the soil would be dissolved by irrigation or rainfall and the infiltration water containing dissolved salts would have been flowed along the subsoil drainage constructed by the cut-soiler and leached out from the outlet pipe.
