Management Practices

Although not within the scope of this paper, it should be noted that specific management practices can offset the effects of elevated water and soil salinity, allowing the use of some marginal quality water to sustain trees and shrubs. The effectiveness of these practices and treatments varies widely depending on the water quality limitations, the growing site, and the plant species. Some potential salt management practices include the installation of soil drainage systems, deep ripping of impervious soil layers (pans), mulching, installing weed-control fabric, diluting elevated salinity water with reduced salinity water, periodic flushing of the soil profile with reduced salinity water, using excess irrigation for leaching salts from the root zone (using irrigation water with an ECw <2 dS/m; TDS <1280 ppm), minimizing the use of sprinklers in some cases, using flood, properly placed drip, soaker, and bubbler irrigation to flush salts, adjusting the irrigation schedule (especially increasing irrigation frequency on well-drained soils), amending high Na+, poorly-drained soils with gypsum, elemental sulfur or sulfuric acid, amending high Na+ water with gypsum, and the selection of salt-tolerant tree and shrub species.

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Last Modified: 10/10/2007