Salinity-hit: Growers asked to make land fertile
Application of gypsum or any other mixture having same curative effect along with water makes soil soft and fertile.
MULTAN:
Agricultural experts have advised growers to reclaim their salinity-hit land by employing traditional techniques to increase cultivable areas and enhance national agriculture produce. White saline land has a larger quantity of soluble minerals and can easily be made cultivable by deep ploughing two to three times and application of water, and minerals will dissolve into water that takes them deep down the porous land, says a press release issued by the Punjab agriculture department on Friday. Paddy cultivation on such land gives good results and growers should keep cultivating crops continuously to avoid resurgence of the problem of accumulation of minerals. However, to make the black and white saline land fertile, growers would need curative mixtures like gypsum because of the presence of sodium, it says. Application of gypsum or any other mixture having the same curative effect along with water makes the soil soft and fertile.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2013.
Agricultural experts have advised growers to reclaim their salinity-hit land by employing traditional techniques to increase cultivable areas and enhance national agriculture produce. White saline land has a larger quantity of soluble minerals and can easily be made cultivable by deep ploughing two to three times and application of water, and minerals will dissolve into water that takes them deep down the porous land, says a press release issued by the Punjab agriculture department on Friday. Paddy cultivation on such land gives good results and growers should keep cultivating crops continuously to avoid resurgence of the problem of accumulation of minerals. However, to make the black and white saline land fertile, growers would need curative mixtures like gypsum because of the presence of sodium, it says. Application of gypsum or any other mixture having the same curative effect along with water makes the soil soft and fertile.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2013.