Increasing soil salinity and degraded irrigation water quality are major challenges for agriculture. This study investigated the effects of irrigation water quality and incorporating compost (3% dry mass in soil) on minimizing soil salinization and promoting sustainable cropping systems. A greenhouse study used brackish water (electrical conductivity of 2010 µS/cm) and agricultural water (792 µS/cm) to irrigate Dundale pea and clay loam soil. Compost treatment enhanced soil water retention with soil moisture content above 0.280 m³/m³, increased plant carbon assimilation by ~30%, improved plant growth by >50%, and reduced NO₃⁻ leaching from the soil by 16% and 23.5% for agricultural and brackish water irrigation, respectively. Compared to no compost treatment, the compost-incorporated soil irrigated with brackish water showed the highest plant growth by increasing plant fresh weight by 64%, dry weight by 50%, root length by 121%, and plant height by 16%. Compost treatment reduced soil sodicity during brackish water irrigation by promoting the leaching of Cl⁻ and Na⁺ from the soil. Compost treatment provides an environmentally sustainable approach to managing soil salinity, remediating the impact of brackish water irrigation, improving soil organic matter, enhancing the availability of water and nutrients to plants, and increasing plant growth and carbon sequestration potential.

This study explores the effects of alternating current-induced electromagnetic field (EMF) on mitigating brackish water irrigation and soil salinization impacts. Greenhouse experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of EMF on plant growth, soil properties, and leaching of ions under different conditions, including using brackish water and desalinated water for irrigation and soil compost incorporation. The experiment was performed with four types of irrigation water using soil columns representing field soil layers. EMF-treated brackish water maintained a sodium adsorption ratio of 2.7 by leaching Na⁺ from the soil. EMF-treated irrigation columns showed an increase in soil organic carbon by 7% over no EMF-treated columns. Compost treatment reduced the leaching of NO₃⁻ from the soil by more than 15% using EMF-treated irrigation water. EMF-treated brackish water and compost treatment enhanced plant growth by increasing wet weight by 63.6%, dry weight by 71.4%, plant height by 22.8%, and root length by 115.8% over no EMF and compost columns. EMF-treated agricultural water without compost also showed growth improvements. The findings suggest that EMF treatment, especially combined with compost, offers an effective, low-cost, and eco-friendly solution to mitigate soil salinization, promoting plant growth by improving nutrient availability and soil organic carbon.

Brackish water is becoming an increasingly important resource for agricultural irrigation due to limited freshwater availability; however, concerns persist regarding its potential to degrade soil quality and reduce crop yields. This study evaluated the combined effects of irrigation water quality (brackish water, electrical conductivity (EC) of 2958 µS/cm; agricultural water, EC 796 µS/cm), soil type (agricultural soil and reclaimed desert soil), and compost treatments (no compost, mulch compost, Johnson-Su compost, and mulch compost incorporation) on soil health and chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) growth under greenhouse conditions. Compost amendments significantly improved plant height by 58–213%, root length by 35–166%, and wet biomass by 154–1400% compared to control treatments. Agricultural water maintained lower soil EC (0.553–0.870 mS/cm) than brackish water (0.751–1.104 mS/cm), while Johnson-Su compost most effectively reduced salinity impact on plant growth. Leached water analysis showed higher Na⁺, Cl⁻, and SO₄²⁻ mobility under brackish irrigation, with compost treatments enhancing nutrient retention and soil moisture by buffering salinity stress with carboxylic group and cation exchange capacity. Johnson-Su compost incorporation consistently mitigated the negative effects of brackish irrigation by reducing sodium accumulation, improving chloride mobility, and enhancing soil nitrogen dynamics. These results highlight that combining high-quality irrigation water and biologically active composts improves soil health and plant productivity, while brackish water use requires soil amendments to mitigate salinity risks.

This work describes a novel strategy for designing and building a solar energy harvester that can continuously and autonomously supply power to wireless sensor nodes for long‐term applications. The system depends on solar‐charged supercapacitors instead of batteries and is designed to require very low solar radiation; for a 12 V 1.5 W rated photovoltaic panel, the minimum solar radiation was 55 W/m ² . Consequently, the system is efficient even on cloudy days and under scarce sunlight conditions. On average, considering sleep and active cycles, the node consumed a total of 0.28 mW. More than a year of consecutive field experiments was conducted in a variety of environments, including the understory of dense vegetation, confirming the feasibility and long‐term viability of the harvester system in challenging environments. Two 3 V 50F supercapacitors connected in series can power the system in the absence of sunlight for 5 days. To enhance reliability, emergency backup coin‐cell batteries are provided. The proposed solution guarantees that the system is always powered, reducing data loss due to power outages as well as the number of site maintenance visits. Supercapacitors offer longer lifetime and faster charging than batteries, while having a higher cost and lower energy density. However, the system footprint is not larger than a battery‐based system, and life‐cycle cost analysis shows that higher costs are offset for long‐term deployment.

Field evidence for hybrid renewable microgrids remains scarce, and reliability indices measured on operating systems are rarely qualified by their operating conditions. This paper reports on the design and field evaluation of a 24 V direct-current microgrid that combines photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation with lead-acid storage and a parabolic-dish thermoelectric branch on a shared bus. Reliability was assessed from metered field campaigns (696,595 records) and a design-basis suite using Loss of Power Supply Probability (LPSP), Loss of Load Expectation (LOLE), and two storage-independent indices. At the metered load, wind reduced battery-supplied energy by 17.9% (13.5% at night) and generation adequacy LPSP from 47.9% to 39.4% by generating at night and under low irradiance. Under a 140 W design-basis load, wind reduced LPSP from 4.18% to 0.93%, but the same load over a different resource window (calendar period of measured weather) yielded 24.1%, showing that reliability indices depend jointly on load, storage, and resource window. For the thermoelectric branch, diagnostic elimination showed that manual-tracking dwell time and optical-interface coupling govern output; repositioning the modules raised delivered power from 13.11 W to 50.96 W.