Eco-friendly treatment of wastewater and its impact on soil and vegetables using flood and micro-irrigation

The wastewater irrigation is carried out in order to make the nutrients present in the water available to the plants grown. But it also possesses potential health hazards due to the accumulation of heavy metals to the soil and plant parts from the wastewater. The present research work aimed to check the effect of wastewater and treated wastewater on soil and crop i.e. bottlegourd and palak(spinach). The research was conducted from 2014 to 2017 in the 12 C research farm of ICAR-IARI, New Delhi. These crops were irrigated with untreated waste water and treated waste water. Crop and field irrigated with wastewater had shown a large amount of heavy metal deposition compared to treated wastewater. In addition, the influence of two irrigation systems, including drip and flood, was studied. Drip irrigation was found to be effective because there were less amounts of heavy metals deposited in the edible portion of the crop as well as in the soil.