ON‐FARM WATER AND SALT MANAGEMENT UNDER A STRAWBERRY–PEPPER COMBINATION IN THE KORBA AREA

Abstract

AbstractIn the irrigated area of Korba, aquifer high electrical conductivity exceeding 28 dS m‾¹ was measured. Increasing soil electrical conductivity has led to an abandonment of farms and a reduction of the area devoted to some crops, such as tomatoes, which fell from 450 to 210 ha, between 1998 and 2011. Some new practices such water blending, crop rotation and crop association have been introduced. The most important crop combination of strawberry–pepper is widespread throughout the area. The two crops were grown simultaneously in the same plots for two successive years during the first years of the project; this new combination reached 130 ha. During recent years, this combination has been maintained for only one year due to the observed yield decrease during the second year. In order to evaluate this crop combination and with the aim of understanding why farmers grow only one year of this combination, trials were conducted from July 2011 to August 2013. Soil electrical conductivity (EC) distribution and irrigation uniformity were analysed. During irrigation seasons, soil EC was 1.45 dS m‾¹ at the beginning (July 2011) and reached 3.3 and 5.52 dS m‾¹ respectively in August 2012 and August 2013. These soil EC values were high for strawberry. This explains why farmers choose rainfed crops, and salt‐tolerant crops during the second year. A survey concerning irrigation uniformity gave an acceptable figure of almost 90%. Even if the gross margin shows that it is not worthwhile to blend fresh and saline water, farmers opt for water blending. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.