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Agriculture Corner

Reducing Soil Evaporation in Arid Agriculture

Introduction

The second approach in maintaining soil moisture in arid lands is by reducing soil evaporation by applying certain methods. This is important because after securing or preserving the water in the soil of the root zone of plants, it is important to stop this water for maximum time as arid lands or arid agriculture has the characteristics of low rainfall frequency. So till the next rainfall, the previous water of rain should be stopped from evaporation.

There are various methods to reduce evaporation of moisture from soil in arid agriculture. These are;

  1. Soil Mulching
  2. Straw Mulching
  3. Chemical Mulching

Soil Mulching

This method of soil moisture preservation can reduce the evaporation by 50 percent roughly. In this technique, a surface of mulch of soil is created by giving a shallow cultivation. The deepness of soil mulch is 5-8 cm. The advantage of shallow polughing or harrowing helps in breaking capillary link of lower soil with surface soil. Applying this technique is advice by the agriculture experts after every rainfall.

Straw Mulching

It is an artificial sort of a mulching technique. In this technique, straws of crop residues are used instead of soil. It has been proved scientifically that straw mulching reduces soil moisture up to 50-75mm. This is technique is widely practiced in arid lands by the farmers after wheat harvesting.

Chemical Mulching

This is a new technique and is under experimentation. Evaporation of soil water is a severe problem in arid agriculture system and the above two techniques though save considerable amount of moisture evaporation; however, they are not long term approaches. Chemical mulching uses chemical Hexadecanol. During experiments, it showed that when sprayed and mix on the top quarter inch of soil, it reduces evaporation by 43 percent. The advantage of this mulching technique over other two is that this technique remained effective for a year. The surface layer of soil gets dry rapidly than untreated soil. The dry layer creates a buffer to evaporation.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ] Rahman, M. A. (2018, September 20). Reducing Soil Evaporation in Arid Agriculture [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/09/20/reducing-soil-evaporation-in-arid-agriculture/ [/box]

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Agriculture Corner

Preserving Rain Water at the Root Zone Level in Arid Agriculture

Preserving Water at the Root Zone

The soil present at the root zone of the plants actually acts as the water storage reservoir.  This moisture carrying soil is very for a plant life. To increase the moisture, there is a need to increase the infiltration rate of water into the soil so that water is readily available in the root zone. The water that infiltrates into this reservoir can be stored for a longer period of time for crop use that results in good agriculture production. The preservation of rainwater by this method helps increasing the agriculture production in arid agriculture systems. This article focuses on presenting various methods for preserving rain water at the root zone of plants.

The infiltration rate of water into the soil however, depends upon many factors. These include soil texture, soil cover, soil structure, the degree and dryness of soil. It also depends heavily on the distribution of rainfall along with the intensity of rainfall. The chief enemy of good infiltration of water into the soil is the run-off of water from the fields that results in poor infiltration and thus agriculture production is lost. 

Any practice, aimed at increasing the infiltration rate of water into the soil helps increasing the storage of rain water into the soil. There are several agronomic practices that can increase the infiltration of rainwater into the soil and thus helps in increasing the agriculture production in the arid lands. These are;

  1. By leveling the agricultural fields equally so that no slope is available to the water to run-off. Digital land leveler can serve the purpose greatly here.
  2. By avoiding creation of compactness in the soil. This can be reduced by occasional ploughings in agriculture fields.
  3. By establishing high alleys or bounds around the agriculture fields.
  4. By increasing the vegetative cover over the soil.
  5. By creating terracing.
  6. By doing strip cropping along the contours.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ] Rahman, M. A. (2018, September 20). Preserving Rain Water at the Root Zone Level in Arid Agriculture [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/09/20/preserving-rain-water-at-the-root-zone-level-in-arid-agriculture/ [/box]

Categories
Agriculture Corner

Arid Agriculture and Moisture Deficiency

Introduction

In arid lands of Pakistan and India, water is the chief limiting factor in optimum crop production. On the other hand, unfortunately, it is also the most wasted factor of production in arid land agriculture system.  The water resources are not uniformly distributed in arid agriculture system.  In many parts of Pakistan and India, water resources are abundant where they are required least and areas where there requirement is most, they are scarce and hence no or less production is achieved from agriculture sector. Moisture deficiency in arid lands is thus a growing issue.

It is also a fact that the chance of having a bumper crop of wheat depends largely on the healthy production of wheat in arid lands whether it is Pakistan or India. This is because; the irrigated agricultural lands are already producing the crops at their full potential. Those areas have abundant water along with optimum supply of fertilizer as the farmers there have good financial resources to supply fertilizers to their lands. On the other hand, arid agriculture has not only limited supply of water that results in less production and less profits to the farming community and that is why production of crop depends highly on good supply of rain water in arid lands.   

The current moisture deficiency in arid regions doesn’t mean that they have lack of water resources. In many dry regions of Pakistan and India, there are several potential water resources that could be developed and additional water can be made available by increasing efficiency of existing water resources and by improving water conservation practices. These practices can be clubbed together under two main approaches. More detail about these two approaches for improving moisture deficiency in arid regions can be accessed from below two links. These are;

  1. Preserving rain water at the root zone level in arid agriculture
  2. Reducing soil evaporation in arid agriculture

Under these two approaches, there are several methods that can be adopted. To learn more, click above two links.

Cite this Article in APA Style as:

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ] Rahman, M. A. (2018, September 20). Arid Agriculture and Moisture Deficiency [Blog Post]. Retrieved from http://aridagriculture.com/2018/09/20/arid-agriculture-and-moisture-deficiency [/box]