Impact of Distillery Wastewater Irrigation on Chemical Properties of Agriculture Soil

The utilization of treated agro-industrial effluents has been recommended as sound option for agriculture irrigations practices and sustainable land management programme. This paper presents the impact of utilizing treated effluent form a distillery industry on physico-chemical properties of soils in an agriculture plot. The effluent was applied in 50 and 100% strength and a control plot received normal groundwater as irrigation water under wheat cropping system. No fertilizer was applied in effluent treated crop while field with groundwater received normal dose of chemical fertilizer. The distillery effluent treated plots showed considerable level of all major soil nutrients. The pH of effluent irrigated soils was in alkaline scale while EC of same soil suggests the high concentration of soil nutrients. The organic carbon (3.25 – 6.75 %) was high in effluent irrigated soils than control. The ranges of important soil nutrients: total P, total N, total K, total Ca, total Fe, total Mg and total Zn were relatively higher in effluent treated soils than control plots. Results suggested that distillery effluent can be a sustainable option for crop irrigation to solve twofold problems of agriculture system: soil nutrient deficiency and supply of water for crop irrigation.