The Available‐water Capacity of a Sandy Loam Soil

Salter, P. J.; Haworth, F.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2389.1961.tb00922.x

Cited by 36 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…As a result, -values from −33 to −5 kPa have been proposed to define FC (Richards and Weaver, 1944;Salter and Haworth, 1961;Linsley and Franzini, 1972;Romano and Santini, 2002;Kirkham, 2005;Nemes et al, 2011). More recently, Assouline and Or (2014) proposed a method to relate the slope of the soil characteristic curve (n), the air entry value ( ae ) and the residual water of a soil ( r ) (van Genuchten, 1980) to a soil specific FC, based on the balance between capillary and gravitational forces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inference of Soil Hydrologic Parameters from Electronic Soil Moisture Records

et al. 2017

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Key Points• Soil hydrologic parameters including field saturation, field capacity, initiation of plant water stress and plant extraction limits can be reliably determined from electronic soil moisture sensor records.• Soil profile wetting and drying occurs along a regular continuum of soil moisture following the advance of the wetting from to the effective base of the soil profile.• Frozen soil conditions and interactions between energy and water limited water balances complicate interpretations of fluxes in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum.Soil moisture is an important control on hydrologic function, as it governs vertical fluxes from and to the atmosphere, groundwater recharge, and lateral fluxes through the soil. Historically, the traditional model parameters of saturation, field capacity, and permanent wilting point have been determined by laboratory methods. This approach is challenged by issues of scale, boundary conditions, and soil disturbance. We develop and compare four methods to determine values of field saturation, field capacity, plant extraction limit (PEL), and initiation of plant water stress from long term in-situ monitoring records of TDR-measured volumetric water content ( ). The monitoring sites represent a range of soil textures, soil depths, effective precipitation and plant cover types in a semi-arid climate. The records exhibit attractors (high frequency values) that correspond to field capacity and the PEL at both annual and longer time scales, but the field saturation values vary by year depending on seasonal wetness in the semi-arid setting. The analysis for five sites in two watersheds is supported by comparison to values determined by a common pedotransfer function and measured soil characteristic curves. Frozen soil is identified as a complicating factor for the analysis and users are cautioned to filter data by temperature, especially for near surface soils.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Inference of Soil Hydrologic Parameters from Electronic Soil Moisture Records

et al. 2017

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“…Field capacity, on the other hand, is sensitive to small changes in water potential and temperature, and its determination is the most difficult aspect of assessing the available water capacity of a soil (e.g. Salter and Haworth, 1961). Errors in determination of FC are of particular importance, since only water stored in a profile above a potential of about-1| atm.…”

Section: Smectoid Soil 20 24mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The kaolinitic and montmorillonitic clay soils covering most of the Island have a rather massive structure and are frequently stony, and nothing was known about the constancy, or otherwise, of their 'field capacity'. We eventually abandoned approaches based on the pressure membrane apparatus, in-field determination of field capacity, and the other methods of assessing soil water attributes recently reviewed by Salter (1967), concentrating instead on large undisturbed soil monoliths removed from the field and stood side by side at the laboratory for comparison.To extract a monolith the two ends of a 44-gallon oil drum were removed and the resulting cylinder was placed upright on the soil at a carefully selected site. A pit was dug around the cylinder, leaving it standing on a central column of soil, which was trimmed as precisely as possible, with a machette, to the diameter of the drum.…”

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The Available-Water Capacity of Barbados Soils

Hudson¹

1969

Ex. Agric.

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Large soil monoliths, extracted undisturbed in 44-gallon oil drums, have been used to assess the available-water capacity, and the relation between the growth of sugarcane and soil water deficit for agricultural soils in Barbados. Constancy of field capacity was studied and the effect of cultivation on the storage of available soil water. Deep montmorillonite clays and oceanic soils had storage capacities greater than 20 cm. of water in an 80 cm. profile, whereas sandy or stony montmorillonite clays and most soils developed from kaolinite clays had capacities less than 11 cm. Cultivation significantly increased the water holding capacity of soils but this was rarely as great as for fabricated composts and the water was never so freely available. The data have been used in decisions about cultivation and irrigation, and as the basis for an ecological grouping of sugar estates according to their probable water balance.During 1963/4 the soils of Barbados were mapped at a scale of i : 10,000 by the Regional Research Centre (Vernon and Carroll, 1966). We have attempted to interpret this soil map in terms of the availability of soil water during shorter or longer periods of drought, since this is known to be the main factor limiting yields of sugar in Barbados. The kaolinitic and montmorillonitic clay soils covering most of the Island have a rather massive structure and are frequently stony, and nothing was known about the constancy, or otherwise, of their 'field capacity'. We eventually abandoned approaches based on the pressure membrane apparatus, in-field determination of field capacity, and the other methods of assessing soil water attributes recently reviewed by Salter (1967), concentrating instead on large undisturbed soil monoliths removed from the field and stood side by side at the laboratory for comparison.To extract a monolith the two ends of a 44-gallon oil drum were removed and the resulting cylinder was placed upright on the soil at a carefully selected site. A pit was dug around the cylinder, leaving it standing on a central column of soil, which was trimmed as precisely as possible, with a machette, to the diameter of the drum. The drum was then pushed down over the trimmed soil column as the pit was progressively deepened. When the cylinder touched bed rock, or had been sunk to its full depth, one of the ends previously cut from the drum was placed on the soil surface and four chisel-punches were made under the rim of the cylinder to secure it. A slip-knot in the hawser of a front-mounted Land Rover winch was then drawn tight under the cylinder to cut the soil off neatly, using the hawser in the same way as a wire cheese cutter. The drum was then tilted slightly, and a sheet of metal slipped over the hawser hook and under the drum to form a skid on which the monolith could be winched from the pit. n Expl Agric. 5, 3

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“…At Wellesbourne, a long-term experiment has shown that the supply of nutrients is only in part the reason for the very marked responses of vegetable crops there to FYM (Haworth, 1960). The soil at Wellesbourne contains 53% coarse sand, 28% fine sand, 10% silt, and 9% of clay (Salter & Haworth, 1961), and it compacts severely in dry weather. After 9 years, during which 20 tons of FYM per acre was applied to each crop and incorporated by rotavating (other methods of incorporation gave similar but smaller effects) the available water capacity (per unit of volume) in the top 6 in.…”

Section: Vol 24mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of organic manures on soils and crops

Bunting

1965

Proc. Nutr. Soc.

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All soils which carry crops or vegetation contain organic matter, which consists of or is derived from the plants, animals and micro-organisms which live or have lived in or on the soil. Agricultural and especially horticultural soils contain also organic matter derived from whatever organic manures have been incorporated in the soil. The quantities of organic matter in soils range from below 1% (dry weight) in the soils of arid and semi-arid regions to over 80% in organic soils such as peats in which acidity, waterlogging or other conditions have checked the oxidation of the organic materials. Many British agricultural soils contain I-3% of organic matter. T h e amount of organic material in the soil represents the equilibrium between additions (parts of plants and animals and their excreta, crop residues and organic manures) and losses, mainly by biological oxidation, and for any particular, and more or less stable, set of technological or ecological circumstances it tends to a steady value.On the Broadbalk plots at Rothamsted, on a heavy clay-with-flints soil, plots which have received no manure, or mineral fertilizers only, for over 120 years, contain about 274 of organic matter ; in those which have received both mineral and nitrogen fertilizers the larger amounts of crop residues have raised this figure to about 2.4% ; and the plot to which 14 tons per acre of farmyard manure has been added each year https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi

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The Available‐water Capacity of a Sandy Loam Soil

Cited by 36 publications

References 17 publications

Inference of Soil Hydrologic Parameters from Electronic Soil Moisture Records

Inference of Soil Hydrologic Parameters from Electronic Soil Moisture Records

The Available-Water Capacity of Barbados Soils

Effects of organic manures on soils and crops

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