Agriculture faces three way problems in the Sundarban blocks of South 24 parganas district of West Bengal. These are soil salinity, late release of land for rabi crop due to poor drainage system along with low percolation rate, and poor irrigation facility as the ground water is saline. In this perspective, it was imperative to find out a crop which can tolerate salinity to some extent and can grow without irrigation. Sweet potato being a crop which can grow without irrigation, the present investigation was made to find out the threshold salinity level for growing sweet potato in the saline rice fallow of Sundarbans. It was observed that this crop could be grown successfully at a salinity level upto EC 2.37 dS/m. With gradual increase in salinity level, the initial herb growth was well but root development became poor. Although a satisfactory yield and a profitable return was obtained upto a medium soil salinity level.
