Study of Impact of Irrigation on Soil Quality of Jam River Basin, Nashik and Ahmednagar District (M.S.), India

The current study was conducted in May 2022 to determine the impact of irrigation on soil quality of the Jam River basin, Nashik and Ahmednagar district. The geo-referenced surface soil (0-22.5 cm) samples (60) were collected from study area by using Differential Global Positioning System (D-GPS). The pH of soil of study area varied from 6.9 to 9.5. 90 % soil samples are normal in range, 6.66% having pH basic and 3.33 % soil samples are highly basic in nature. while EC of the soils varied from 0.12 to 9.78 dS m-1 and 83.33 % values were normal. In the current field of study concerning soil quality, salinization, waterlogging and boron toxicity are a few of the significant effects of irrigation that have been observed. The observations demonstrate that the salinization of soil is the result of the cumulative interactions of several components rather than the action of a single component alone. The semi-arid climate, over-irrigation, chemical fertilizer use, flood irrigation and monoculture cropping patterns like sugarcane are some of the research area's most likely sources of salinization. The irrigated area's experienced water logging and boron toxicity.