Moisture Distribution and Salt Concentration Under Different Water Management and Irrigation Technique

Abstract

Field experiment was conducted at Al-Raad Research station to study the moisture content and salt concentration in soil cultivated with corn. Surface and subsurface irrigation method were used and irrigation treatment were 0.8 , 0.6 , 0.4 water requirement . Through he growing season soil samples were collected from (0-5) , (5-10) , (10-20) , (20-30) and (30-40)cm depth to measure the moisture control gravimetrically . Before planting and after harvesting soil . Samples were taken to measure the salt concentration .The results indicated that soil moisture content were high after 24 hours of irrigation and decreased after 48 hours and the lowest value were after 72 hours of irrigation for both irrigation treatments and through the three months period .For the surface drip irrigation the moisture content at the 0-5 cm layer depth were ranged from 19.74% to 36.92% and the value were ranged from 18.6% to 26.8% at the 30-40 cm depth layer. For the sub drip irrigation treatments the moisture content for the 0-5 cm layer were ranged from 13.31% to 25.3% for the three months period . At the 30 -40 cm depth layer the moisture content were ranged from 17.66% to 31.9% . Through the period all the highest values were result for the DI 0.8 and SDI 0.8 and the lowest values were result for the DI 0.4 and SDI 0.4 treatments .The irrigation treatments decrease the salt concentration at the root zone except the SDI 0.4 treatments which increase the salt concentration from 10.3 ds.m-1 to 11.58 ds.m-1.