eChapter Name: Soil Salinity and Alkalinity
9788119103256
eBook Name: SOIL PROFILING AND MANAGEMENT
by Pramod Kumar, Vikas Singh, Ravi Kumar , Dushyant
Introduction
Salinity is a form of salt that occurs naturally within soils or water. When soil
becoming salty form that is called salinization, it can be caused by mineral
weathering called as natural process but it can be caused by irrigation called
as artificial process. Saline or salty soil have a high salt content like sodium
chloride (NaCl also called table salt). Salinity is like- abiotic stress for plants
and reduced the plant growth but not for all because some of them crops are
survive in better way for growth and development such as barley, sugerbeet,
cotton and mustard etc. Basically, stress are two types-biotic and abiotic
stress. Abiotic stress are also called nonliving stress like- drought, salinity,
submergence, heat, cold and temperature that are affect to plant life cycle so
that are called as abiotic stress. Natural water and all types of soil both contain
soluble salts. Amount of salt affected to weather of soil, when excessive salt
present in soil and it adversely affects to crop growth and developments. Salt
affected soils exist under arid and semi-arid climates. Major constitutions of
soluble salt in soil are the cations and anions. Cations are containing sodium,
calcium, magnesium and anions are contains chloride, sulphate, carbonate and
bicarbonate. Saline soil have <8.5 pH, >4EC (dS/m) and <15 ESP. where EC
is eclectical conductivity that is measure of soil salinity and ESP stand for
Exchangeable sodium percentage.