Water productivity of wheat cultivars under saline irrigation and foliar potassium fertigation

Availability of fresh water is one of the limiting factors affecting the growth and yield of a variety of crops. Besides this, declining water table depths and deterioration of its quality is rampant in many parts of the world today. Salt-affected irrigated land in the world is increasing over the years. Sustaining crop growth and yield with proper management of irrigation water under saline environment necessitates modification in the conventional crop cultivation practices. A field experiment was conducted on two winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars (viz. salt tolerant cultivar KRL-1-4 and salt non-tolerant cultivar HD-2894) under saline irrigation regimes (1.7 to 12 dSm-1) with and without foliar potassium fertigation in the research farm of the Water Technology Center (WTC), ICAR-IARI, New Delhi, India. In this experiment potassium was applied in the ratio of K+: Na+ (1: 10) as foliar application during the heading stage of the crop. The KRL-1-4 cultivar under foliar treatment resulted in increase in water productivity by 6.3 to 21.1% as compared to the non-foliar treatments with irrigation water salinity ranging from 1.7 to 12 dSm-1. The increase in water productivity of wheat with foliar potassium fertigation over the non-foliar application for the HD 2894 cultivar was found to vary from 3.8 to 14.9% with irrigation water salinity upto 12 dSm-1. Overall, it was observed that the water productivity of both cultivars under foliar potassium fertigation resulted in higher water productivity for all salinity regimes as compared to the non-foliar treatment.