Use of an hydrophilic polymer to improve water storage and availability to crops grown in sand dunes II. Cabbage irrigated by sprinkling with different water salinities

Abstract Agrosoak®, a polyacrylamid (PAM) hydrophilic gel was tested as a soil conditioner for increasing the water absorbing capacity of sand dunes. This enabled the replacement of an expensive drip irrigation system with an inexpensive, more commonly used sprinkling method. Cabbage ( Brassica oleraceae L.) was irrigated by sprinkling with double line-source technique to achieve different water amounts and salinity levels (1.9–7.8 dS·m −1 ), and with different concentrations of Agrosoak added to the soil (0.00, 0.15, 0.30, 0.45% by weight). Agrosoak increased water availability which indeed contributed to the increase in the yield of the crop irrigated with saline water. However, it was confirmed that this particular PAM enriched the soil solution with Na + reducing the yield when irrigated with fresh water. The results indicated that Agrosoak may have increased the water use efficiency with plants grown on sandy soils when the crop is tolerant to Na + . The use of a modified type of PAM, that will not release sodium to the soil solution, is recommended.