caa a22 4500 477110215 CHVBK 20180405111606.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170330e19960401xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/BF00012059 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/BF00012059 The role of macropores in the cultivation of bell pepper in salinized soil [Elektronische Daten] [Steven Emerman, Todd Dawson] The hypothesis tested in this paper is that, because the freshest water occurs in the largest soil pores (macropores), plants of low to moderate transpiration rate can survive in salinized soil because they preferentially extract water from macropores. The hypothesis predicts that a plant growing in a macroporous soil should have greater growth under a given salinity treatment than a similar plant growing in a soil with the same mineralogy but without macropores. This hypothesis was tested by growing bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) in the greenhouse in pots filled with either a commercial fritted clay (a highly macroporous soil) or the same clay ground to a finer texture and sieved to remove macropores and produce a microporous soil. The pots sat in pans filled with salt water. Half of the pots were irrigated once a day with fresh water and the other half received no fresh water. Plants growing in the macroporous soil had greater growth for a given salinity treatment than the plants growing in the microporous soil under both the irrigated and non-irrigated conditions. Under the irrigated condition for the highest salinity treatment, the non-reproductive fresh weight per plant, total dry weight per plant and fruit fresh weight per plant was 114 g, 12 g and 50 g, respectively, for the macroporous soil and 47 g, 4.5 g and 5 g, respectively, for the microporous soil. The results of this study provide evidence to suggest that a better understanding of what constitutes a ‘good' structure in a saline soil may aid us in our efforts to improve the management of saline soils. We suggest that it may be possible to increase the agricultural production on salinized land by no-tillage agriculture which preserves macroporosity. Possible obstacles could be the tendency of field saline-sodic soils to swell and the unavailability of relatively fresh irrigation water in areas with saline soils. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996 Capsicum nationallicence macropore nationallicence no-tillage nationallicence pepper nationallicence salinity nationallicence salt nationallicence Emerman Steven Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, 14853, Ithaca, NY, USA aut Dawson Todd Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, 14853, Ithaca, NY, USA aut Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl 181/2(1996-04-01), 241-249 0032-079X 181:2<241 1996 181 11104 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012059 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00012059 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Emerman Steven Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, 14853, Ithaca, NY, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Dawson Todd Section of Ecology and Systematics, Cornell University, 14853, Ithaca, NY, USA aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Plant and Soil Kluwer Academic Publishers; http://www.wkap.nl 181/2(1996-04-01), 241-249 0032-079X 181:2<241 1996 181 11104 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer