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Published in Soil Sci Soc Am J 32:310-317 (1968)
© 1968 Soil Science Society of America
677 S. Segoe Rd., Madison, WI 53711 USA
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Hydraulic Properties of a Clay Loam Soil and the Field Measurement of Water Uptake by Roots: I. Interpretation of Water Content and Pressure Profiles1

C. H. M. van Bavel, G. B. Stirk and K. J. Brust2

ABSTRACT

The distribution of irrigation water in an Adelanto clay loam profile was studied in a field plot by simultaneous, periodic observations of the water content and hydraulic head profiles. Successive measurement series were made with the plot bare and covered, bare, and planted to a sorghum crop (Sorghum vulgare Pers.). From the first two, the in situ and dynamic relations of water content to water pressure and to conductivity were obtained. From the cropped field data, the root-extraction pattern was derived, using the established hydraulic properties of the profile. The data demonstrate the variability within depths and locations of water retention and conduction properties and the consequent problem of calculating fluxes. The mobile character of soil water is also evident, confirming the inadequacy of static concepts of soil water "constants" for a profile. Calculated root-extraction rates agreed reasonably with independent lysimetric measurements of the water loss from the surface to the atmosphere.

NOTES

1 Contribution from the Soil & Water Conservation Research Division, ARS, USDA.

2 Chief Physicist, Visiting Scientist, and Agricultural Engineer, respectively, U. S. Water Conservation Lab., Phoenix, Ariz. Permanent affiliation of second author: Division of Soils, CSIRO, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Present address of first author: Institute of Life Science, Texas A & M Univ., College Station, Tex.

Received for publication May 12, 1967. Accepted for publication January 29, 1968.






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