Etana, Ararso
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Research article2013Peer reviewed
Persistent subsoil compaction and its effects on preferential flow patterns in a loamy till soil
Etana, Ararso; Larsbo, Mats; Keller, Thomas; Arvidsson, Johan; Schjønning, Per; Forkman, Johannes; Jarvis, Nicholas
Abstract
Persistence of subsoil compaction was investigated in a field experiment in southern Sweden. The investigation compared two treatments (control and compaction by four passes track-by-track), 14 years after the experimental traffic. The compaction experiment was carried out in 1995 with a 6-row sugar beet harvester with a wheel load of c. 10.4 Mg. Investigations included penetration resistance, bulk density, water retention, saturated hydraulic conductivity, in situ near-saturated hydraulic conductivity, and dye tracing experiments. The measurements of penetration resistance and bulk density clearly showed the persistence of subsoil compaction. In addition, both macroporosity and saturated and near-saturated hydraulic conductivity were smaller in the compacted plots, although these differences were not statistically significant. Dye tracing allowed us to visualize flow patterns in the soil and to quantitatively distinguish compacted and non-compacted subsoil profiles. Despite significant soil textural heterogeneity across the experimental field, the dye tracing data showed that persistent compaction may enhance preferential flow. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Dye coverage; Dye tracing; Flowpath width; Hydraulic conductivity; Metric entropy; Soil compaction
Published in
Geoderma
2013, volume: 192, pages: 430-436
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
SLU Authors
Larsbo, Mats
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Keller, Thomas
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Arvidsson, Johan
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Forkman, Johannes
- Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Crop Production Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Jarvis, Nicholas
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
- Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
UKÄ Subject classification
Soil Science
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2012.08.015
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/39847