The size and horizon-of-origin of fragments produced by deep ripping texture contrast soils [red brown earths]
1987
Blackwell, P.S. | Green, T.W. (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Canberra (Australia). Div. of Soils) | Olsson, K.A. (Victorian Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Tatura (Australia). Inst. for Irrigation and Salinity Research)
Two texture contrast soils were cultivated by deep ripping when they were drier than their lower plastic limits. One soil, a transitional red-brown earth, had either been previously uncultivated below the A horizon or had been deep ploughed and gypsum added 2 years previously. There was much fragmentation and mixing of soil from both of the horizons. Fine soil from the A horizon reached the lower depths of the trough made by the ripping and coarse soil from the B horizon was brought to near the surface. The fragment size distributions were characteristically bimodal. In the laboratory, clods from the deep ripped soil were crushed at the same low water potential (air dry). The crushing energy per unit mass (specific crushing energy) was inversely proportional to the normalized geometric mean diameter of the fragments produced. Suggestions are made for modelling the effects of the deep ripping.
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