Model for assessing impact of salinity on soil water availability and crop yield

The salinity condition in the root zone hinders moisture extraction from soil by plants, because of osmotic potential development in soil water due to presence of salts, which ultimately, decreases transpiration of plants and thereby affects crop yield. Therefore, an effort was made in this study to quantify the impact of salinity on soil water availability to plants. The movement of salts under irrigation and evapotranspiration regimes in root zone of soil profile was studied throughout the growing season of wheat crop with adopting exponential pattern of root water uptake. A model was developed to analyze soil water balance to find out moisture deficit because of salinity. A non-linear relationship was formulated between moisture content and salt concentration for simultaneous prediction. The Crank-Nicolson method of Finite Differencing was used to solve the differential equations of soil water and solute transport. The effect of various salt concentrations on transpiration was analyzed to develop a relationship between relative evapotranspiration and relative yield. Relationships among salt concentration, matric potential, moisture deficit and actual transpiration were also established to provide better understanding about impact of salinization and to provide guidelines for obtaining better crop yields in saline soils. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.