Investigation on the Possibilities of Utilization of Geostatistical Technique in Soil Moisture Content and Bulk Density Determinations

Authors: İbrahim ORTAÇ, Aytekin BERKMAN

Abstract: This investigation has been conducted to quantitatively evaluate the possible variation tendencies of some important physical properties such as bulk density and water contents of field soils with distance. The experiment was set up on Arlk soil series situated on Ç.Ü. Faculty of Agriculture Experimental Farm. Soil samples were taken at 5 m intervals on two 100 m transacts placed in North-South and East-West directions. The sampled soil depths were 0-20, 20-40 and 40-60 cm in the directions of North-South and 0-20 cm in that of East-West: yielding a total of 80 soil samples. The variation tendencies of above mentioned soid properties were quantitatively evaluated semi-variograms and it was found that the variability is dependent on the sampling interval. The sampling interval for a reliable estimation of bulk density was 40 m in North-South and 30 m in East-West directions: and for soil moisture contents it was 20 m in North-South directions and 25 m in East-West directions.

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