Spatial variability of Southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain soil physical properties: Implications for site-specific management |
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| Institution: | 1. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dry-land Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, PR China;2. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China;3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China;1. Supervisory Research Rangeland Management Specialist and Research Leader, USDA-Agricultural Research Service, Rangeland Resources Research Unit, Cheyenne, WY 82009 USA;2. Rangeland Management Specialist, Grazing Lands Technology Team, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Central National Technology Support Center, Fort Worth, TX, 76115 USA;3. Center Manager, Center for Land Stewardship, Noble Foundation, Ardmore, OK 73401 USA |
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| Abstract: | Our objectives were to describe the field-scale horizontal and vertical spatial variability of soil physical properties and their relations to soil map units in typical southeastern USA coastal plain soils, and to identify the soil properties, or clusters of properties, that defined most of the variability within the field. The study was conducted on a 12-ha field in Kinston, NC. A 1:2400 scale soil survey had delineated three soil map units in the field: Norfolk loamy sand, Goldsboro loamy sand, and Lynchburg sandy loam. These are representative of millions of hectares of farmland in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern USA. Sixty soil cores were taken to ～ 1-m depth, sectioned into five depth increments, and analyzed for: soil texture as percentage sand, silt, and clay; soil water content (SWC) at ? 33 and ? 1500 kPa; plant available water (PAW); saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat); bulk density (BD); and total porosity. A penetrometer was used to measure cone index (CI) at each sample location. Variography, two mixed-model analyses, and principal components analysis were conducted. Results indicated that soil physical properties could be divided into two categories. The first category described the majority of the within-field variability and included particle size distribution (soil texture), SWC, PAW, and CI. These characteristics showed horizontal spatial structure that was captured by soil map units and especially by the division between sandy loams and finer loam soils. The second class of variables included BD, total porosity, and Ksat. These properties were not spatially correlated in the field and were unrelated to soil map unit. These findings support the hypothesis that coastal plain soil map units that delineate boundaries between sandy loams versus finer loam soils may be useful for developing management zones for site-specific crop management. |
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