The Impact of agriculture on soil texture due to wind erosion

COLAZO, J.C; BUSCHIAZZO, D.E.

LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT

JOHN WILEY & SONS LTD

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 26 p. 62 - 70

1085-3278

Wind erosion produces textural changes on topsoil of semiarid and arid environments, however the selection of particles on different textured soils is unclear. Our objectives were to: evaluate textural changes induced by wind erosion on cultivated soils of different granulometry, and to asses if textural changes produced by wind erosion are linked to aggregation of granulometric particles into different sizes of aggregates formed in contrasting textured soils. Considering this, we studied the particle size distribution (PSD) with full dispersion (PSDF) of fourteen cultivated (CULT) and uncultivated (UNCULT) paired soils; and on selected sites the PSD with minimum dispersion (PSDMIN) and the quotient PSD MIN/F. Results showed that the content of silt plus clay was lower in CULT than in UNCULT in most of the sites. The highest removal of silt was produced in soils with low sand and high silt content, meanwhile the highest removal of clay was observed in soils with medium sand content. According to PSDMIN, particles of 250$2000 µm predominated in the sandy soil, in the loamy soil particles between 50$250 µm and in the silty loam soil particles between 2$50 µm. For clay sized particles PSD MIN/F was lower than 1 in all soils and managements, but this quotient was higher in CULT compared to UNCULT only in the loamy soil. This means a decrease of clay accumulation in aggregates of larger sizes produced by management which indicates an increase in the risk of removal of these particles by wind in loamy soils.