Abstract

Soil viscosity as a new physico-chemical approach for measuring the improvement in calcreous soil treated with compost

Author(s): S.Y.Awadalla, A.F.Faten Nour El-Dien, G.G.Mohamed, Amal A.Ahmed

Soil viscosity provide as a newparameter formeasuring the improvement of calcareous soils those treated with several samples of plant residues compost. The aim of this paper is to study the soil viscosity and its relations with some soil properties as affected by twenty four compost samples of rice and corn wastes. The samples prepared by two different composting methods with some additional treatments through composting process, so that used in ameliorating Maryut calcareous soil. The data indicate good response of treated soils, referring to viscosity values, due to either kind or amount of compost samples. Furthermore, the degree of effectiveness correlated significantly with many of compost characters either as internal structure likemolecular weight (M.wt) and thermal index (RI) or as physicochemical properties like heat capacity (Cp), water holding capacity (WHC), moisture content, organic matter content (OM%) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). Soil viscosity in relation with treated calcareous soil has significant negative correlations with CP and WHC, while have significant positive correlationswith bulk density and EC. Finally, we provide this new aspect to be considered with the classic soil measurements as it may need more investigations to apply with different soil types.