Changes of Water Retention in Rice Soil Amended with Organic Manures under ‎Irrigation by Saline and Sodic Water

Abstract

The quality of irrigation water may affect soil water retention properties, especially in arid areas such as Egypt. Evaluate such an impact plays a vital role in the achieving of effective development of soil and water maintenance and management practices. Therefore, a field trial was performed to evaluate the effects of irrigation water qualities and organic manures amendment on the soil water potential as a limiting factor of crop production. The treatments consisted of all possible combinations of three types of organic manures (2 t fed-1 rice straw compost, 5 t fed-1 farmyard manure (FYM), and 2 t fed-1 rice straw compost + 5 t fed-1 FYM) beside the control and three types of irrigation water differed in salinity (EC) and sodicity (SAR Adj), that were industrial wastewater, agricultural drainage water and freshwater. The investigated treatments influenced the shape of the soil-water characteristic curves (sorption and desorption) and had considerable effects on the aggregate stability as indicated by the patterns of hysteresis phenomena. The variation of irrigation water quality had the strongest effect on modifying soil properties, especially agricultural drainage water having the highest SAR Adj then industrial wastewater with the highest EC. In addition, mixing compost with FYM is considered the best improver for soil irrigated with poor quality water under these experimental conditions.