Q&A

What is the difference between Sodicity and salinity?

What is the difference between Sodicity and salinity?

While salinity can improve soil structure, it can also negatively affect plant growth and crop yields. Sodicity refers specifically to the amount of sodium present in irrigation water. Irrigating with water that has excess amounts of sodium can adversely impact soil structure, making plant growth difficult.

How do you manage Sodicity?

Managing dispersive (sodic) soils

  1. Avoid disturbing already productive sodic soils.
  2. Apply lime or gypsum.
  3. Increase organic matter.
  4. Use deep-ripping.
  5. Use raised beds or deepened seedbeds.
  6. Use alternative plant and land-use options.

What causes soil salinity and Sodicity?

The improper use of such poor quality waters, especially with soils having a restricted drainage, results in the capillary rise and subsequent evaporation of the soil water. This causes the development of surface and subsurface salinity, thereby reducing the value of soil resource.

What is salinity management?

Irrigation water adds dissolved salts to cropland increasing soil salinity. Leaching is necessary to keep the average rootzone salinity below the plant threshold EC levels to sustain crop production.

Why is salinity a problem?

Salinity affects production in crops, pastures and trees by interfering with nitrogen uptake, reducing growth and stopping plant reproduction. Some ions (particularly chloride) are toxic to plants and as the concentration of these ions increases, the plant is poisoned and dies.

What happens when salinity increases?

The density of water increases as the salinity increases. The density of seawater (salinity greater than 24.7) increases as temperature decreases at all temperatures above the freezing point. The density of seawater is increased by increasing pressure.

What causes Sodicity?

Sodicity is caused by the presence of sodium attached to clay in soil. The sodium weakens the bonds between soil particles when wetted resulting in the clay swelling and often becoming detached. When this happens the clay particles spread out or disperse making the soil water cloudy.

What is the best treatment for sodic soils?

The quickest and most effective way to treat sodic subsoil is to add gypsum directly to the subsoil, using deep cultivation, slotting or trenching. Table 1 A guide to the rate of gypsum application for different degrees of dispersion (sodicity), exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP) and pH of the soil.

What is the soil salinity level?

7.2. 2 Soil salinity

Salt concentration of the soil water (saturation extract) Salinity
0 – 3 0 – 4.5 non saline
3 – 6 4.5 – 9 slightly saline
6 – 12 9 – 18 medium saline
more than 12 more than 18 highly saline

How do you fix salinity?

Managing salinity

  1. planting, regenerating and maintaining native vegetation and good ground cover in recharge, transmission and discharge zones, where possible.
  2. using more groundwater in recharge areas by pumping water from bores and redirecting it to other storages.

How can we reduce salinity?

How To Reduce Soil Salinity?

  1. Increase drainage for better flushing (to remove salts from the ground surface).
  2. Plant salt-tolerant crops to manage economic risks and to ensure land cover.
  3. Remove salt crystals from the surface mechanically.
  4. Restore the balance via chemical amendments (e.g., gypsum or sulfuric acid).

Is salinity good or bad?

What is the relationship between salinity and sodicity?

The main concerns related to the relationship between salinity and sodicity of irrigation water are the effects on soil infiltration rates and hydraulic conductivities. The ratio of salinity (EC) to sodicity (SAR) determines the effects of salts and sodium on soils.

How does salinity and sodicity affect plant growth?

While salinity can improve soil structure, it can also negatively affect plant growth and crop yields. Sodicity refers specifically to the amount of sodium present in irrigation water.Irrigating with water that has excess amounts of sodium can adversely impact soil structure, making plant growth difficult.

How are soil flocculation and sodicity related?

Salinity promotes soil flocculation and sodicity promotes soil dispersion. The combination of salinity and sodicity of soils is measured by the swelling factor, which is the amount a soil is likely to swell with different combinations of salinity and sodicity.

How can machine learning be used to predict soil salinity?

The proposed method can also be applied for quantifying the spatiotemporal variability of other dynamic soil prop- erties, such as soil nutrients, organic carbon content, and pH. soil salinization|soil salinity|soil sodicity|machine learning|global scale modeling S