Soil Physical Properties of TNAU-Research Farms, Coimbatore

Abstract

The physical properties of 14 pedons representative of various soil series inthe research farms of TNAU, Coimbatore were studied during 2017-19. Thedepth of soils ranged from shallow (<65 cm) to very deep (>150cm). Soildepth was shallow in a steep slope, whereas deep soils were found in nearlylevel to very gently sloping plain. The texture of the surface and subsurfacesoils ranged from sandy clay loam to clay. The bulk density of the surfaceand subsurface soil samples ranged from 1.09 to 1.78 Mg m-3 irrespectiveof the depth. Higher bulk density has been recorded in the subsurface thanin the surface layer. The hydraulic conductivity of the pedon soil samplevaried from 0.40 to 8.69 cm hr-1 and decreased with increasing depth. Theinfiltration rate ranged from 0.80 to 13.75 cm hr-1 represented moderate tovery rapid category. Low moisture and medium-textured soil recorded thehighest infiltration rate, whereas clay dominated soil showed a low infiltrationrate. The total porosity of soil varied from 36.18 to 50.99 per cent irrespectiveof soil depth with the capillary and non-capillary porosity of 26.70 to 39.76per cent and 3.42 to 16.59 per cent respectively.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.29321/MAJ.2020.000334

Pages

68 - 73

Creative Commons

Copyright

© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Madras Agricultural Students' Union in Madras Agricultural Journal (MAJ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited by the user.

Keywords