Vol. 11, Issue 7 (2022)

Author(s):
T Suresh, P Santhy and M Baskar

Abstract:
Field experiment was conducted at Anbil Dharmalingam Agricultural College and Research Institute, Trichy using cotton (RCH- 20) as a test crop to examine the effect of ameliorated alkali water and soil amendments on soil properties, growth, and yield of hybrid cotton in sodic soil under drip irrigation. Drip irrigation with gypsum treatment water and drip irrigation with spent wash treatment water were used as main-plots treatments. Soil application of gypsum @ 50% GR (5.2 t ha^-1) and one time soil application of distillery spent wash @ 5 lakh litter ha^-1 were imposed as sub-plot treatments. The treatment without amendments both under main plot and sub plots were used as control. The experiment was conducted in the strip-plot design with four replications. The amendments application either through irrigation water (or) through soil significantly reduced the pH of post-harvest soil. The maximum reduction in pH was recorded in spent wash applied plots (7.51) followed by gypsum applied plots (7.77) and control (8.73). Slight increase in EC with spent wash treated plots was observed due to increase in amount of soluble salt. A decrease in ESP of 0.5 and 1.1 was recorded due to the drip irrigation with gypsum treated water and drip irrigation with DSW treated water respectively over control. Similarly, a decrease in ESP of 8.4 and 10.6 was recorded due to soil application of gypsum and DSW respectively over control. Application of amendments had significant influence on the exchangeable cation of the post-harvest soil especially the beneficial cations Ca, Mg, and K.