Improving Soil Physical Indicators by Soil Amendment to a Saline-Sodic Soil

The application of organic amendments can be an appropriate solution to reclaim and improve physical properties of saline-sodic soils. in this research, an experiment was performed under greenhouse conditions to study the effect of amendments to the physical properties of loamy saline-sodic soil. the five treatments were control (without amendment), municipal solid waste compost (mc), vermicomposting (vc), poultry manure (pm), and gypsum powder (g). they were carried out in a completely randomized design with three replications. each treatment comprised 10 ton/ha of the specified soil added to the soil. the results showed that soil amendments decreased bulk density (p<0.05) and increased mean weight diameter of aggregates (mwd) (p<0.05) over the control. the saturated hydraulic conductivity (ks) for the g treatment was significantly higher than other treatments (p<0.05). the addition of amendments significantly increased the sgi index, which is defined as the slope of the retention curve at its inflection point, but the sgi index between the g and mc treatments was not significant (p<0.05). in addition, plant available water content (pawc) increased significantly (p<0.05) for organic amendments over the g and control treatments, and a maximum value was observed for the pm treatment. the positive effects of the amendments showed that the application of organic and/or inorganic amendments can be recommended for saline-sodic soil to improve soil physical quality.