Abstract

Enhancing productivity from irrigated saline environment is of paramount importance to meet the increasing food demand in India. An experiment was conducted during rabi seasons of 2009-10 and 2010-11 with different irrigation water salinity levels and four wheat varieties, including 3 salt tolerant and one non-salt-tolerant.The yield of nonsalt tolerant variety HD-2894 irrigated with ground water (EC 1.7 dS.m-1) was highest (5.25 t.ha-1) with WUE of 18.62 kg.ha-1.mm-1. The salt tolerant variety KRL-1-4, however, produced highest yield of 4.6 t.ha-1, 4.2 t.ha-1 and 3.9 t.ha-1at irrigation water salinity levels of 4, 8 and 12 dS.m-1, respectively, during rabi 2010-11 with average yield higher by 26% and 41% as compared to non-salt tolerant variety HD2894 at irrigation water salinity levels 8 and 12 dS.m-1, respectively.The average water use efficiency of KRL-1-4 under salinity levels of 4, 8 and12 dS.m-1was 12.51 and 15kg.ha-1.mm-1 as compared to 8.75 and 10.33 kg.ha-1.mm-1 for the non-salt tolerant variety during 2009- 10 and 2010-11, respectively. Highest deposition of salt was at the top 15cm soil depth ranging from 1.21 t.ha-1in ground water irrigated plot to 6.22 t.ha-1 in plots with salinity level of 12 dS.m-1. About 66% of salt got deposited in the root zone depth up to 75cm during the crop growth period. It emerged that as the salinity of irrigation water increases, a switchover from high yielding non-salt-tolerant variety to a salt tolerant variety is desirable to achieve higher yields and higher water use efficiencies.

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