Water-facilitated transport of bacteria in unsaturated soil columns: influence of inoculation and irrigation methods
1993
Huysman, F. | Verstraete, W.
The distribution of inoculated bacteria in soil columns could be described by the colloidal filtration model when the irrigation began immediately after the addition of bacteria to the soil surface. An accumulation of bacteria in the topsoil, relative to the colloidal-filtration model, was observed when irrigation began 10-60 min after inoculation of the soil. The increase in the number of bacteria in the topsoil above that predicted by the colloidal-filtration model was 0.7-2.1 log cfu g-1 for the hydrophobic strains investigated and 0.2-1.1 log cfu g-1 for the hydrophilic strains. A similar increase was observed when the bacterial suspension was conditioned for 1 h in a clay loam soil, montmorillonite or kaolinite. The latter appeared to be due to aggregate formation and subsequent filtering of the aggregates by the soil pores. The transport of bacteria was also influenced by, the rate of irrigation. The depth necessary to reduce the number of bacteria by 90% was doubled when the irrigation rate increased from 0.8 to 4.7 cm h-1.
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