Surveying tubewell water suitability for irrigation in four tehsils of district Kasur

Four tehsils of district Kasur (Chunian, Pattoki, Kot Radha Kishan and Kasur) were surveyed and five villages were selected in each tehsil at random. Two water samples were collected from each village and were analyzed for various irrigation water quality parameters. The results indicated that 60% tubewell were unfit from Chunian, 90% from Pattoki, 90% from Kot Radha Kishan and 80% from Kasur tehsil. Overall, 20% of total tubewells water sampled had quality parameters within the acceptable limits whereas 80% were unfit for irrigation. About 97% waters were unfit due to high salinity (EC > 1250 S cm -1), 63% were due to high sodium adsorption ratio (SAR > 10 mmol L-1)1/2 and 97% were due to high residual sodium carbonate (RSC > 2.5 me L-1). It may be inferred that use of poor quality irrigation water will cause deterioration in soil health, which consequently will result in poor crop production. Hence, it is emphasized that tubewell discharging unfit water should be used by following sound management practices like precision land leveling, inclusion of high salt tolerant crops in traditional cropping system, occasional deep ploughing in heavy textured soil, occasional flushing of the soil profile with heavy irrigation to reduce the salt concentration in the root zone and application of organic and inorganic amendments like pressmud, poultry manure, farm yard manure and gypsum or acid/acid formers etc, however the management options must be on the basis of analysis of water quality parameters.