Reclamation of Sodic-Saline Soils. Barley Crop Response

Abstract

The research was aimed at assessing the salinity and sodicity effects of two soil types submitted to correction on barley crop. The two soils, contained in cylindrical pots (0.40 m in size and 0.60 m h) supplied with a bottom valve for the collection of drainage water and located under shed to prevent the leaching action of rainfall, were clay-textured and saline and sodic-saline at barley seeding, as they had been cultivated for 4 consecutive years with different herbaceous species irrigated with 9 types of brackish water. In 2002-2003 the 2 salinized and sodium-affected soils (ECe and ESP ranging respectively from 5.84-20.27 dSm-1 to 2.83-11.19%), submitted to correction, were cultivated with barley cv Micuccio, and irrigated with fresh water (ECw = 0.5 dS m-1 and SAR = 0.45) whenever 30% of the maximum soil available moisture was lost by evapotranspiration. Barley was shown to be a salt-tolerant species and did not experience any salt stress when grown in soils with an initial ECe up to 11 dS m-1. When it was grown in more saline soils (initial ECe of about 20 dS m-1), despite the correction, it showed a reduction in shoot biomass and kernel yield by 26% and 36% respectively, as compared to less saline soils.