Self-repair of compacted Vertisols from Central Queensland, Australia
Vertisols have the inherent ability to self-repair because of high clay contents and clay type that govern volume change. A study was undertaken to correlate soil inherent properties with two indicators of structure improvement based on tensile strength and clod porosity of compacted soil cores befo...
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Published in | Geoderma Vol. 144; no. 3; pp. 491 - 501 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Amsterdam
Elsevier B.V
15.04.2008
Elsevier |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Vertisols have the inherent ability to self-repair because of high clay contents and clay type that govern volume change. A study was undertaken to correlate soil inherent properties with two indicators of structure improvement based on tensile strength and clod porosity of compacted soil cores before and after wet/dry cycles. In order to minimize inter-soil differences Vertisols under similar cropping regimes and from the same climatic region in Queensland, Australia were selected. A soil repair index (
R
T
(1)) based on compressive strength of soil cores was related to soil inherent properties and shrinkage indices, COLE
STD and LS
MOD using multiple regression. Results showed that compressive strength of soil cores after a single wet/dry cycle after compaction was sufficient to rank Vertisols in terms of their capacity to improve structure after compaction. Clay content and clay activity (CEC/clay) on their own were poor indicators of soil repair. Fine sand was shown to be an important component in the repair process. LS
MOD and COLE
STD predicted
R
T
(1) equally well and indicated that Vertisols with COLE
STD values
>
0.15 and LS
MOD
>
12% would be expected to have sharper reductions in tensile strength compared to those with lower values after just one wet/dry cycle. Clod porosity was poorly related to soil inherent properties. |
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ISSN: | 0016-7061 1872-6259 |
DOI: | 10.1016/j.geoderma.2008.01.004 |