Pomegranate: A potential crop for saline areas

Rajkumar, Anshuman Singh, Jagan Singh Gora and Ashwani Kumar

ICAR- Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal-132001(Haryana), India
Salinity leads to the accumulation of soluble salts in the root zone and causes deleterious
effects on plant growth which might be due to low osmotic potential of soil, nutritional
imbalance, specific ion effect (toxic accumulation) or combination of these factors. All the
various plant growth processes such as photosynthesis, protein synthesis, energy and lipid
metabolisms are affected due to salt stress (Parvaiz and Satyawati 2008). These excess salts
reduce plant growth, vigor and yield by altering water uptake and causing ion-specific toxicities
or imbalances in many fruit crops. The crop loss depends on the type of crop and the severity of
the salinity problem. Plants are usually most sensitive to salt during the emergence and early
seedling stages.
In India, with increasing population pressure and competition for good quality lands,
intensive agriculture is being pushed more and more into marginal environments. The arable
lands are shrinking due to developmental activities and offer little scope for raising horticultural
crops. There is no option other than bringing marginal and salt affected lands under cultivation
and utilizing them judiciously through horticultural practices. By growing horticultural crops on
highly deteriorated salt affected soils with saline water may improve economic conditions of
farmers. Among salt tolerant fruit trees, Pomegranate (Punica granatum L.) belonging to family
Punicaceae is a delicious and desert table fruit of tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It
is native to Persia (Iran). In India, it is found growing from Kanyakumari to Kashmir but the
commercial plantations of pomegranate exists only in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Karnataka and to a limited extent in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab,
Haryana and Tamilnadu etc. Owing to its xerophytic characteristics it is very suitable crop for
dry, rainfed, pastured and undulating land, where other fruit crops cannot grow successfully. It
provides high yield and more income per unit area with low input in arid and semi-arid regions.
Salt affected soils and irrigation water are currently most severe abiotic limiting factors for the
cultivation of horticultural crops. Currently, most of pomegranate cultivation is in arid and semiarid regions of the world, where soil salinity and water stress are the main limitations of
appropriate yield production. There is an increasing attention towards salinity and more than 800

million hectare of lands has been affected that is equivalent to 6% of total (Munns, 2002). There
is tremendous scope of boosting the cultivation of pomegranate in the salinity affected soils.
Presently because of hardy nature, high yield and low input requirements in pomegranate has
emerged as a potential fruit crop for the resource poor under harsh conditions. Pomegranate
cultivation could be a viable option in areas where other fruits crops are not able to perform due
to stress and changing climatic conditions (Rajkumar, 2016). Thus, there is further scope for its
expansion in adjacent areas of saline soils for cultivation by the farmers in salt stressed areas of
India.
References:
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization). 1985. Water quality for agriculture (FAO Irrigation
and Drainage Paper 29, Rome, Italy).
Munns, R. 2002. Comparative physiology of salt and water stress.Plant Cell & Environment,
25(2), 239-250.
Parvaiz, A. and S. Satyawati. 2008. Salt stress and phyto-biochemical responses of plants - a
review. Plant, Soil and Environment,54: 88-99.
Rajkumar; Gora, J. S.; Kumar, R.; Singh, A.; Kumar, A.andGajender. 2016. Establishment,
survival and growth of pomegranatecuttings with different concentrations of
indolebutyric acid and rooting substrates. Ecology Environment and Conservation,22:
S321-S327.