ABSTRACT

Fresh water resources are limited in much of the irrigated west cotton areas including New Mexico. However, significant amounts of groundwater resources remain largely unused due to high salinity levels. The objective of this review is to present previous work that determined the extent to which saline water could serve to supplement fresh water sources for irrigated agriculture while maintaining economic farm viability. Two models were developed using a case farm in the Roswell-Artesia Basin. One model predicts yield based on weather and combinations of saline and fresh water. The other model is an economic driven assessment to determine the optimum combination of fresh and saline irrigation water when given a less than optimum cropping pattern and when the model is allowed to choose the best mix of crops and acreages. The results indicate that saline water can be used for irrigated agriculture and that allowing unlimited pumping of saline water could increase farm profitability. Alfalfa cropped with fresh or saline water is the most profitable crop but is dependent on an unlimited and unrealistic water supply. Maintaining cotton in the cropping system may be the best economic hope for using saline water provided pumping costs are kept low.