Water Management and Varietal Selection Approach in Mitigation of Arsenic in Inceptisols of West Bengal, India

Irrigation with contaminated Arsenic (As) water is greatly correlated with increased soil As along with enhanced uptake in plants, which in turn biologically accumulates in different parts of the plant at toxic levels. The current study is aimed at characterization and mitigation of Arsenic contamination through irrigation and varietal selection. Characterization of arsenic was done through staggered random sampling. Experimental plots were laid in highly As contaminated farmer's field with three rice varieties and three moisture regime in randomized block design keeping summer rice as standing crop. According to the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) study, soil phosphorus, followed by soil pH, Nitrogen, and Potassium have been found to be more sensitive in regulating soil As. The Alternate Wetting Drying (AWD) irrigation regime has significantly less arsenic concentration in rice when compared with Saturation (SAT)<Continuous Submergence (CS). Interestingly, maximum transfer of arsenic from soil to grain has been observed in AWD, with the least use of contaminated irrigation. Transfer factors (TFs) for As was least in cultivar IET-17430 as compared with IR-36> IET-4786.