Nutrient management in salt affected soils for sustainable crop production

ABSTRACT Soil salinity and sodicity are the global problems and pose a serious threat to agriculture sustainability. The distribution of salt affected soils exist mostly under arid and semi-arid climates where rainfall is inadequate to leach salts from/out of the root zone. These soils have poor fertility, generally with low availability of nitrogen, calcium, zinc, iron and manganese. Therefore, judicious nutrients management on the principle of INM in these soils is as important as their reclamation. In these soils, crops respond differently to applied nutrients due to their diverse chemical composition impacting precipitation-dissolution reactions and adsorption-desorption kinetics. Nutrient transformation and loss mechanisms of applied nutrients are also affected by the magnitude of soil salinity and sodicity. The paper aims at discussing efficient nutrient management in salt affected soils for sustainable crop production.