Phytoremediation and ploughing in soils affected by salts

This book presents an alternative method used to recover soils with salt problems. Traditional methods take a great deal of time and financial resources, which in many cases do not pay off. With this in mind, we resorted to an alternative in the recovery of soils affected by salts, using (phyto)plants combined with agricultural gypsum in soil management to improve soils with salt problems. The study was conducted in an area previously identified as having saline-sodic soil in the Sao Goncalo Irrigated Perimeter, in the region of Sousa, Paraiba, Brazil. We used the phytoremediation technique with saltgrass, chickweed and wild parsley, combined with agricultural gypsum. Grass-salt is of Asian origin, parsley and chickweed are native to the north-east of Brazil, found mainly in soils with low fertility and often degraded through weathering or inadequate human management. This book is aimed at professionals or students in the agricultural sciences, offering them a basis for further studies with this aim.