Effect of Glauconite, Gypsum and Leaching Requirements on the Productivity of Salt affected Soils

Abstract

The application of leaching requirements and soil amendments such as glauconite and gypsum are management practices for improving the productivity of salt affected soils. A field trial was conducted at El-Hamoul District, Kafr El Sheikh Governorate during two winter seasons (2016/017 and 2017/018) to investigate the effect of irrigation with leaching requirements (LR), ie. without (I1), 5% (I2) and 10 % (I3) and some soil amendments, ie. without (A1), gypsum (A2), glauconite (A3) and gypsum combined with glauconite (A4) on improving saline-sodic soils, sugar beet yield, water productivity and economic returns. The obtained results could be summarized as follows: Irrigation with LR. 10 % (I3) received the highest amount of irrigation water applied compared to other treatments in both seasons. The application of 10 % LR (I3) and gypsum and/or glauconite decreased soil salinity, sodicity, penetration resistance and bulk density but increased basic infiltration rate and total porosity of soil. Irrigation with 5% or 10 % LR with soil amendments increased sugar beet root, top and sugar yields in both seasons. The interaction between I3 and A4 achieved the highest root yield, top yield, sugar yield, irrigation water productivity (IWP), net return, net return from water unit and economic efficiency in both seasons. It could be concluded that the interaction between I3 and A4 resulted in enhancing saline-sodic soils productivity and recorded the highest values of net return and economic efficiency for sugar beet crop.