There has been a great deal of interest in the greater expanses of white saline areas in fields this spring. One reason for their appearance is that these areas have been present in the past couple years, but the soils have been moist enough so that the salts have not shown up.
Salt comes from our groundwater.
When groundwater is deep, as it is during dry periods such as 1987-1989, the areas of salinity are reduced in size, because what water does fall moves the salts deeper in the soil. There is a lag time between rainfall and groundwater accumulation, and a lag time between this accumulation and groundwater lateral movement. In addition, because rains have been spotty this spring, there has not been significant leaching of salts either. In many fields, the salts are encroaching from the road. In our region, nodule development and nitrogen-fixing bacteria activity in inoculum is relatively slow.