214 CROPS FOR ALKALI LAND 



Rye has been highly recommended as a crop to produce 

 forage and green manure for alkali lands too strong for 

 most ordinary crops. Hansen (5a) used it with good success 

 in reclaiming land containing about 17,100 parts per mil- 

 lion of alkali, mostly sodium sulphate, and was able to re- 

 duce the alkali content of the soil considerably by turning 

 the crop under as green manure. The seedbed for rye 

 should not contain more than about 5000 parts per million 

 of white alkali, however, or a poor growth will result. 

 With rye, as with other crops to be grown on alkali lands, 

 the quantity of seed sown should be greater than for crops 

 on ordinary land and the seedbed made as free from 

 salts as possible by cultural methods and irrigation. 

 Kearney (17) regards rye as being about equal to barley 

 in alkali resistance, or withstanding for a successful grain 

 crop between 4000 and 6000 parts per million of white 

 alkali. 



Corn has been found (12, 13, 17) to fail on very weak 

 alkali soils and its production on soils containing large 

 quantities of alkali is not ordinarily to be recommended. 



Rice has been found to do well in Egypt (17) where 

 the alkali content of the soil was as high as 10,000 parts 

 per million, a large part of which was sodium chloride, 

 but this was under very favorable conditions. The soil 

 can be kept moist or wet in growing rice so that more alkali 

 may be present without injury than where a lower soil 

 moisture content is maintained. 



Emmer is usually considered to be about equal to wheat 

 in its resistance to alkali. Grain crops other than the 

 above mentioned have not given promise on alkali lands. 



Sunflowers were found by Loughridge (19) to endure 

 3740 parts per million total salt of which 3290 parts per 

 million were sodium sulphate. 



