The objective of this paper is to report the cumulative effects of cropping system intensification on the near surface soil physical properties (surface one inch of soil) within the Colorado dryland agroecoystem project, which has been in existence since 1986. Intensifying cropping systems from wheat-fallow to wheat-com-fallow to continuous cropping, increased crop residue return to the soil. R...

Agricultural soils of selected regions of Southwestern Karnataka, Peninsular India, were subjected to systematic mineralogical characterization along with the study of soil physical properties. Physical properties such as soil texture and micro porosity were studied using particle size analyses and positron annihilation lifetime analysis (PALS) technique, respectively. The latter was used to an...

To understand the hydraulic properties of soils, accurate prediction of unsaturated hydraulic conductivity is needed which is commonly derived from the soil water release characteristic. In fine-textured soils the modified Mualem-van Genuchten (MMVG) function has been used extensively to predict the change in relative conductivity with changes in matric potential, but this assumes that the soil...

Tillage operations disrupt surface layers of agricultural soils, creating a loosened structure with a substantial proportion of interaggregate porosity that enhances liquid and gaseous exchange properties favorable for plant growth. Unfortunately, such desirable soil tilth is structurally unstable and is susceptible to change by subsequent wetting and drying processes and other mechanical stres...

Harvest traffic with heavy equipment causes damage to forest soils. Whereas increased soil damage has been reported with increasing harvest equipment traffic and on increasing slope gradients, it is unclear how much soil damage is caused by different directions of skidding. We examined the effects of traffic frequency, skid trail slope and skidding direction on the dry bulk density and total po...

A GIS framework, the Army Remote Moisture System (ARMS), has been developed to link the Land Information System (LIS), a high performance land surface modeling and data assimilation system, with remotely sensed measurements of soil moisture to provide a high resolution estimation of soil moisture in the near surface. ARMS uses available soil (soil texture, porosity, Ksat), land cover (vegetatio...

The present work aimed to contribute for a better knowledge regarding soil features as cork quality indicators for stoppers. Cork sampling was made in eight Cork oak stands (montados de sobreiro) located in the Plio-Plistocene sedimentary formations of Península de Setúbal in southern Tagus River region. The samples used to classify the cork as stopper for wine bottles were obtained in eight co...

Sub-surface irrigation (SUI) is a new water-saving irrigation technology. To explore the influence of SUI on soil conditions in a cherry orchard and its water-saving efficiency, experiments were conducted from 2009 to 2010 using both SUI and flood irrigation (FLI) and different SUI quotas in hilly semi-arid area of northern China. The results demonstrated the following: 1) The bulk density of t...

many farmers periodically use deep tillage operations to alleviate compaction in the soil profile caused by natural factors or machinery traffic. in 2012 and 2013, a study was initiated in the pannonian region of croatia to study the effects of no-tillage (nt), conventional tillage (ct) and deep tillage (dt) on soil compaction, measured by (bd), soil water content (swc), penetration resistance ...