Effectiveness of compost use in salt-affected soil in an automated greenhouse irrigation system

Abstract

Salinity problems reduce productivity on both irrigated and non-irrigated agricultural lands. Saline soils occur in arid and semi-arid regions where rainfall is insufficient to meet the crops’ water requirements and leach mineral salts out of the root-zone. Compost can play an important role in managing, mitigating, and improving the soil salinity negative effects. In this work, the compost effects on salt affected soil were studied. Therefore, physico-chemical parameters and morphological status of the plants divided into four plots in a greenhouse were studied. The first plot P0 is a control plot which was irrigated by fresh water, P1 was irrigated with fresh water mixed with compost, P2 and P3 were irrigated by saline water with an NaCl concentration of 5 g/L. An automated irrigation system was implemented to manage plots irrigation. The system was based on an electronic board and multiple sensors to track ambient temperature and humidity in the greenhouse, soil moisture and temperature of each plot, data was stored in a SD card. The results obtained showed that compost use increased stem growth by 23%, this percentage was improved by 10% for greenhouse tests.

Keywords

• soil salinity
• saline water
• compost
• connected greenhouse