Effects of Different Irrigation Treatments on Aquaculture Purification and Soil Desalination of Paddy Fields

Abstract

Aquaculture wastewater contains considerable quantities of organic matter, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Irrigation of paddy rice with aquaculture wastewater can make full use of water and fertilizer, which has practical significance for alleviating water-use conflicts in the coastal areas of Jiangsu Province and promoting soil desalinization. Our objective in this study was to evaluate the effects of water quality indexes of surface discharge in paddy fields, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) losses of discharge in paddy fields, growing indexes of plants, grain yield, as well as soil salinity affected by the different irrigation treatments. To achieve this objective, experiments were conducted from May to October in 2017. There were four treatment combinations: I1W1 (shallow–frequent irrigation and aquaculture wastewater), I2W1 (shallow–wet irrigation and aquaculture wastewater), I3W1 (flooding irrigation and aquaculture wastewater), and I1W2 (shallow–frequent irrigation and fresh water). The results revealed that there was no significant difference in grain yield among the three wastewater irrigation treatments. Meanwhile, the values of water quality indexes were optimal in I3W1; the total losses of TN and TP of the I3W1 treatment were the lowest over the three important growth stages; the desalinization rate of I3W1 was the largest due to its long hydraulic retention time and large irrigation depth. The overall results suggested that the I3W1 treatment was the optimal treatment.