| The yield contributing characters viz. ear length, number of grain per
ear and 1000 grain weight were also studied and it has been observed that
upto EC 12 ds/m ear length was not found affected and EC 16 caused only
3.6% reduction. Similarly, number of grain per ear was not found to be affected
upto EC 8 and at EC 12 & 16 it declined only by about 5%. 1000 grain weight
was started to decline from EC 2 onwards progressively but with very low
degree (Table 2). The correlation between ECiw
and these yield attributes was rated non-significant (Table
3). The crop yield under saline irrigation was found to decline with salinity of irrigation water. The drymatter yield declined only at EC 12 ds/m and above. At EC 12 and 16 the drymatter yield declined by 18 and 33% respectively. The reduction in grain yield started with EC 4 onwards but upto EC 8 the percentage was only 2.7. With EC 12 and 16 the grain yield lowered by 21 and 37% respectively. Reduction in grain yield per unit EC of water from EC 8 to 16 was about 4%. Almost similar reduction in wheat yield was reported by POONIA et al. (1974) and TRIPATHI & PAL (1979). Mildly saline water (EC 2 to 5 ds/m) have shown the improvement in grain and dry-matter yield (TRIPATHI et al., 1971). The ECiw has been found to be significantly correlated with grain yield (r = -0.72) and dry-matter yield (r = -0.5) with respective regression equation as Y = -1.0X + 43.49 and Y = -2.0X + 103.02. Further, the relationship of different plant characters with grain yield under saline irrigation were also assessed and presented in Fig. 1 and Table 4. The figure show that germination trend very closely related with grain yield while plant height and number of tillers also showed the trend similar to yield. The 1000 grain weight data also rallid to some extent only. The ear length and number of grain per ear had shown no resemblance with grain yield pattern. The correlation studies (Table 4) also showed that only germination, number of tillers and plant height were found to be significant. Thus it may be inferred that in light textured soils and semi-arid climatic conditions, wheat can be grown upto EC 8 ds/m comparable to control (canal water). The saline irrigation at EC 12 and 16 ds/m reduced wheat yield by 21 and 37 per cent over control and also significantly correlated (r = -0.42). The reduction in yield mainly caused by poor germination, tillering, stunted growth and to some extent by low 1000 grain weight. Acknowledgement The authors are very much thankful to I.C.A.R., New Delhi for financial assistance; Principal, Raja Balwant Singh College, Agra for providing necessary facilities and to the staff who made this ivestigation a success. References BERNSTEIN, L. 1964. Salt Tolerance of Plants. pp. 10-15, Information Bulletin 283, United States Department of Agriculture, Washington. BHUMBLA, D.R., J.S. KABWAR, K.K. MAHAJAN and BHAJAN SINGH. 1964. Effect of irrigation waters of different sodium and salinity hazards on the growth of the crops and the properties of soils. Proceedings of General Symposium on the problems of Indian Arid Zone. Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur. KANWAR, J.S. and B.S. KANWAR. 1969. Quality of irrigation waters. Trans. 9th int. Congr. Soil Sci. 1: 391-403. POONIA, S.R., L.R. JOHORAR, J.NATH and S.S. KHANNA. 1974. Effect of quality of irrigation water, leaching levels and farm yard manure on the performance of wheat and pearlmillet. Indian J. agric. Sci. 44: 854-859. TRIPATHI, B.R., B. MISRA, R.M. BINGH and B.P. SINGH. 1971. Quality of irrigation water and its effect on soil characteristics in semi-desert tract of Uttar Pradesh. II. Effect of water quality on soil properties and yield of wheat crop. Indian J. Agron. 16: 95-102. TRIPATHI, B.R. and B. PAL. 1979. Seasonal salt accumulation and salt tolerance of wheat to saline water in the semi-desert of Uttar Pradesh. Indian J. Agric. Sci. 49: 206-210. |
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