Software for Field Experiment With Irrigation by Saline Water

This paper deals with the development of a software using the visual basic (VB) algorithm for quantifying the proportionate mixture of Sodium Chloride, Magnesium Sulphate and Calcium Chloride salts in field experiments where the treatments comprise irrigation with waters of varying salinity. The software also estimates the irrigation water quantity and interval for different crops under different salinity treatments for the field trials. It may be used as a decision support system to generate scearios quantifying the irrigation water, total salt and the irrigation interval for different crops as desired by the user. The programming logic is based on the standard salt estimation and irrigation scheduling formulas along with if..then..else programming construct with user operated control buttons. The software is available as an execution file (salinityestimator.exe), which worked satsfactorily in Windows 95 and higher OS with IBM-PC based platforms having minimum hardware (Pentium-I or compatible processors with 16MB RAM or above). The software was operated to estimate the salt and irrigation water requirement for a bio-drainage pot experiment at the Water Technology Centre, IARI, New Delhi.