Soil Water in Coarse Fragments

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Abstract
The amount of availability of water contained in coarse fragments is often considered to be negligible, but may in fact play an important role in the water relations of soils containing numerous coarse fragments. The objective of this study was to measure the availability of water contained in two contrasting types and several size fractions of fragments. Field capacity, −15 bar potential, and wilting point (WP) measured by plant extractions were made on sandstone fragments from the surface layers of Cutshin soil and shale fragments from a Colyer soil. The sandstone fragments contained about 11% available water by volume, and the shaly fragments contained 23% available water by volume based on WP measurements by plant removal in the greenhouse. The −15 bar potential determined in the laboratory compared closely with WP measured by plant removal for the sandstone fragments, but the −15 bar potential indicated higher levels of moisture retained in the shale fragments than WP as determined in the greenhouse.

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