reclamation of sodic soil with organic and industrial amendments and their effect on rice

Abstract

newline Rice is the major staple food for the people of India and is the second largest producer newlineof rice in the world (FAO, 2009). Globally, around 831 Mha soil are salt affected (Gangwar et newlineal., 2020). In India, out of the 329 Mha of geographical area, about 37,88,159 ha is under sodic newlinesoil (CSSRI, 2017). The existing technology for reclamation of sodic soil viz., the use of newlinegypsum based on gypsum requirement led to mining of our non-renewable mineral resource. newlineThis needs an alternative source for reclamation of sodic soil with the available organic and newlineindustrial products which are available in plenty and cheap. In India, sugar industry is the newlinesecond largest agro based industry in which about 4.2 Mt of press mud produced every year. newlineSince it is rich in calcium, it can be extensively used as an amendment. Fly ash available in newlineplenty from Thermal Power Stations is also rich in calcium. The increasing use of combine newlineharvester for rice leads to accumulation of straw in the field which when decomposed using newlineefficient microbial consortia can be utilised as an organic amendment for sodic soil newlineWith this background, the present investigation on Reclamation of sodic soil with newlineorganic and industrial amendments and their effect on rice was undertaken. To reduce newlinethe heavy metal contamination and effective utilization of fly ash, vermicomposting of fly ash newlinewas done. To fasten the insitu decomposition of rice stubbles under sodic soil condition, newlinemicrobial consortia of silica solubilizing bacteria (SSB) and cellulose degrading bacteria newline(CDB) was prepared. Accordingly, to study the effect of organic and industrial amendments newlineon sodic soil reclamation, an incubation, leaching and field experiments were conducted with newlinerice (variety TNAU TRY 3) at Trichy District, Tamil Nadu