Response of tomato roots growth to some saline irrigation water management practices

Abstract EN

The present work intends to evaluate the influence of salinity, manner and application system of irrigation water on soil salinity and root growth of Super Marmande tomato cultivar.

The experiment was carried out in the Agricultural Experimental Station of the Desert Research Center in Ras Sudr city located in South Sinai Governorate.

The soil of such area is loamy sand, saline – non alkali.

Water management practices include continuous application of water having either high (14.64 ds /m) or low (7.16 dS /m) concentration, as well alternating or blending both types.

Also, three systems of irrigation water viz; drip, subsurface drip and furrow were studied with influence on root length and tips.

The results showed the following : 1) Drip irrigation was superior than other irrigation systems in alleviating salinity build up in the two soil layers under study.

Higher salinity built up under furrow irrigation compared to the other systems.

However, the practices of half amount of high salinity water followed by similar amount of low salinity water in each irrigation as well as the cyclic application resulted in the lowest salinity build up in the two studied layers of the soil profile.

On the contrary, continuous application of irrigation water, resulted in relatively high salt accumulation in soil profile compared with the cyclic application.

2) Subsurface drip caused greater root length and proliferation as compared to other application systems.

The cycling application of different water qualities attenuated the build up of high soil salinity and thus enhanced the root growth and proliferation.