Professional Documents
Culture Documents
429-434, 2014
Available online at http://www.ijsrpub.com/ijsres
ISSN: 2322-4983; 2014; Author(s) retain the copyright of this article
http://dx.doi.org/10.12983/ijsres-2014-p0429-0434
Institute of Environment & Development Studies, Bundelkhand University, Jhansi 284128, India
School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar, 382030, India
*Corresponding Author: Email: archanasingh416@gmail.com
Abstract. Soil sodicity is a significant environmental problem and has its negative impact on human health and agricultural
sustainability. So, the current research was set out to investigate the effectiveness of gypsum as an amendment which improves
the physical and chemical properties of soil and crop productivity. Experiment was conducted in a sodic soil at a farmer's field
in Raebareli district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The field was irrigated with moderately saline but highly brackish water. The
treatment of gypsum granule sizes (110 mm) were Control (No gypsum), Gypsum @ 100% GR in one splits and Gypsum @
100% GR in two splits. In the present study an attempt was made to find out the improvement of micronutrients and chemical
properties of soil in Gypsum amended soils. The effect of Gypsum application significantly improved the soil chemical
properties by reducing the EC and pH.
Keywords: Sodic soil, soil properties, reclamation, gypsum application.
1. INTRODUCTION
Increasing soil salinity and sodicity are serious
worldwide land degradation issues, and may be even
increase rapidly in the future (Wong et al., 2009). The
problem of salt affected soils is pronounced in the
many Indogangetic plains, arid and semiarid regions
of the world and increasingly threatening agricultural
expansion and productivity. It is estimated that 1.5
billion hectare of lands, all over the world, are saltaffected (Yuan et al., 2010). Salinity induced land
degradation is one of the major obstacles to
sustainable agricultural production in many arid and
semi-arid regions of the world (Bossio et al., 2007). In
India, about 6.9 million hectares of sodic soils are
found of which 1.63 million hectares occurs in Uttar
Pradesh only (Pandey et al., 2011) which is the largest
area found in any single state in the country. Only a
negligible portion of soils in UP is saline, the bulk
suffering from alkalinity, associated with excess of
available sodium, poor porosity, low nutrient content,
indifferent drainage and high water-table. The
excessive salt accumulation adversely affects soil
physical and chemical properties, as well as
microbiological processes (Lakhdar et al, 2009). The
addition of gypsum alone or combination with either
organic material or bioinaculants and effect of
conventional tillage has been investigated for
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Fig. 1: Location of the Raebareli district in Uttar Pradesh and the study areas
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International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences, 2(12), pp. 429-434, 2014
Table 1: Soil chemical characteristics of the control site and reclaimed Site (I & II)
Soil
Properties
pH
EC
OC (%)
N (kg/ha)
P (kg/ha)
K (kg/ha)
S (kg/ha)
Fe (ppm)
Cu (ppm)
Zn (ppm)
Mn (ppm)
Control Site
Range
10.58-10.72
1.98-2.12
0.09-0.18
256.54-265.63
3.92-4.864
704.76-709.35
3.95-5.43
21.43-21.66
1.11-2.04
0.70-1.24
31.22-31.47
Mean
10.660.05
2.070.42
0.140.03
261.994.07
4.50.36
706.51.71
4.90.58
21.540.09
1.650.34
0.880.27
31.330.10
The data represents the mean value of five replicates standard deviation.
Whereas, EC = Electrical conductivity, OC = Organic carbon, N = Available Nitrogen, P = Available Phosphorus, K= Available Potassium, S= Available
Sulphur, Fe= Iron, Cu= Copper, Zn= Zinc and Mn= Manganese.
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chemical
quality
Table 2: Correlation matrix for various physicochemical parameters of soil at control Site
pH
EC
OC
N
P
K
S
Fe
Cu
Zn
Mn
pH
1
-0.344
-0.272
-0.192
-0.016
0.440
-0.174
0.373
0.148
0.083
0.291
EC
OC
Fe
Cu
Zn
Mn
1
-0.568
-0.590
-0.009
-0.131
-0.085
-0.694
-0.203
-0.499
0.256
1
0.840
0.605
0.261
0.678
0.746
0.652
0.602
0.140
1
0.646
0.517
0.791
0.492
0.696
0.128
0.254
1
0.825
0.965**
0.461
0.975**
0.052
0.861
1
0.771
0.354
0.870
-0.221
0.894*
1
0.384
0.933*
-0.027
0.741
1
0.607
0.815
0.229
1
0.149
0.831
1
-0.206
pH
1
0.883*
0.292
0.978**
0.743
0.567
0.264
0.204
0.788
-0.677
0.954*
EC
OC
Fe
Cu
Zn
Mn
1
0.48
0.939*
0.427
0.247
0.363
0.049
0.589
-0.405
0.758
1
0.464
-0.194
0.159
-0.427
0.193
-0.301
-0.196
0.194
1
0.640
0.483
0.230
0.232
0.661
-0.602
0.895*
1
0.408
0.428
0.573
0.705
-0.433
0.703
1
0.403
-0.104
0.552
-0.983**
0.768
1
0.173
0.408
0.403
0.080
1
-0.164
0.159
0.038
1
-0.650
0.853
1
-0.854
pH
1
0.778
0.678
0.632
0.771
0.740
-0.492
0.492
0.310
0.008
0.716
EC
OC
Fe
Cu
Zn
Mn
1
0.465
0.905*
0.938*
0.809
-0.627
0.800
0.565
0.281
0.798
1
0.490
0.716
0.864
-0.739
0.513
0.731
-0.336
0.036
1
0.904*
0.766
-0.494
0.973**
0.621
-0.074
0.660
1
0.956
-0.792
0.855
0.783
0.096
0.567
1
-0.898*
0.745
0.868
0.034
0.347
1
-0.488
-0.899*
-0.310
-0.086
1
0.698
-0.205
0.482
1
0.014
-0.044
1
0.290
Where, EC = Electrical conductivity, OC = Organic carbon, N = Available Nitrogen, P = Available Phosphorus, K= Available Potassium, S = Available
Sulphur, Fe = Iron, Cu = Copper, Zn = Zinc and Mn = Manganese.
**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
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International Journal of Scientific Research in Environmental Sciences, 2(12), pp. 429-434, 2014
4. CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, the experimental soil was
calcareous and saline-sodic with alkaline in reaction.
The effect of gypsum application significantly
improved the physiochemical properties of sodic soils
by reducing the EC and pH and improving crop
productivity yielded satisfactory results. Therefore,
gypsum application in split doses could be regarded as
effective and useful for the management of saltaffected soils. Gypsum application at 100% soil GR
with one split and two split, significantly increased the
yield of crop as well as chemical properties of the soil
as compared with control (without gypsum
application) soil. Therefore, it is recommended that
farmers apply the coarse gypsum (110 mm) at the
rate of 100% GR to reclaim sodic soil.
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Archana Singh holds a M.Sc. in Biotechnology (2010) from the department of biotechnology,
Kanpur University. She received M.Phil. degree in Environment science from Bundelkhand
University, Jhansi, India in 2011. She is interested in the research on Reclamation of highly
calcareous saline-sodic soil in Uttar Pradesh, India.
Jitendra Kumar Singh is doing Ph.D. in the School of Environment and Sustainable Development
(SESD), Central University of Gujarat, India. He Completed his M.Phil. M.Sc. in Environment
Science from Bundelkhand University, Jhansi, India. He published more than 05 research papers
with national and International journal.
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