Borewell water is salty and white salt forming on soil surface. Crops failing. How to reclaim.
5 Answers
Saline soil from salty irrigation water builds up when salts are not flushed out, so the core fix is leaching plus drainage and better water management. Where good quality water is available, apply extra water to leach salts below the root zone and provide drainage so the salty water moves out instead of sitting. Add organic matter like FYM, compost and green manure to improve soil structure and water movement. Grow salt tolerant crops such as barley, mustard, certain millets and salt tolerant varieties while you improve the soil. Adding gypsum helps mainly for sodic or alkaline soils, so get a soil test first to know whether your problem is saline or sodic. Get your water and soil tested at a lab and follow the recommendation from ICAR CSSRI Karnal type guidance through your KVK.
I switched to barley and mustard on my salt affected field and added a lot of gobar khaad every year. Slowly it is getting better than when I forced wheat.
Get soil and water tested first. I was buying gypsum without testing and it did not help much because my problem was salinity not sodicity. The lab report changed my whole plan.
When rain comes I deliberately let the field flood once to wash the white salt down, then drain it off the lower side. Mixing some good canal water with the salty bore water when I can also reduced the crust forming.
Mulching helped me a lot here. Bare soil pulls salt up to the top as it dries in our heat, but covering with straw kept the surface from forming that white layer so fast.