SOIL TAXONOMY AND EVALUATION OF SOME PROMISING AREAS FOR AGRIGULTRE UTILIZATION IN THE WESTERN DESERT OF EGYPT | ||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||
| Article 5, Volume 30, Issue 3, March 2005, Pages 1773-1786 PDF (778.27 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2005.226388 | ||
| Authors | ||
| A.A. Hagag1; A. A. Awadalla2 | ||
| 1Soils, Water and Environ. Res. Inst., Agric. Res. Center, Giza. | ||
| 2Soils and water Dept., Fac. of Agric. at El Fayoum, Cairo Univ. | ||
| Abstract | ||
| The magnificence of the studied desert soils has been increased fast due to scale efforts to bring additional areas under the agricultural utilization projects in recent decades. This target will be achieved throughout identifying the soil limitations and the possible adverse environmental effects, and then executing a suitable technique to correct them as well as that has become associated with increasing soil supplying power for soil nutrients or moisture and maximizing the productivity of the grown plants. So, the current work has been undertaken to evaluate the constraints for ameliorating these desert soils under the prevailing environmental conditions of the Western Desert region. The proposal scheme should be overcome three aspects, i.e., soil taxonomy, soil evaluation and soil suitability for certain crops. The studied area is commonly found as desert outskirts at the northern-east side of Wadi El Natrun, and it is situated between latitudes 31o 15- and 31o 40- N, and longitudes 30o 00- and 30o 20- E. With special reference to set up the soil characteristics of the studied area, the technique of space images interpretation plays an important role for tracing the prevailing geomorphic units as well as identifying the promising sites for agricultural purposes. The obtained data of the Images of Landsat interpretation, using Thermatic Mupper (TM 5, SPOT 90), revealed that the area under consideration is occupied by four main landforms or geomorphic units namely Deltalic stages, Wind blown sand deposits, River terraces and Wadi El Natrun complex. Also, these soils are surveyed, according to Taxonomic system of USDA (1999 and 2001), and mapped into five taxonomic units: a. Typic Torriorthents (Deltaic stages), b. Gypsic Aquisalids (Wind blown sand deposits), c. Typic Haplocalcids (River terraces), d. Typic Calcidgypsids and e. Typic Haplogypsids (Wadi El Natrun complex). According to land evaluation system undertaken by Sys and Verheye (1978), the studied soils are affected by many of limiting factors, i.e., topography, wetness, soil texture and salinity/alkalinity, with variable intensity degrees. Also, the current suitability of the studied soils assessed three classes of moderately suitable soils (S2, Deltalic stages), marginally suitable soils (S3, River terraces and Wadi El Natrun complex) and unsuitable soils (N1, Wind blown sand deposits). By executing the suitable soil improvement practices, the potential suitability classes assessed two classes, i.e., moderately suitable (S2, Deltalic stages, River terraces and Wadi El Natrun complex) and marginally suitable soils (S3, Wind blown sand deposits). Land suitability for certain crops can be achieved by matching the ratings of land characteristics with the crop requirements in different suitability levels as proposed by Sys et al. (1993).It could be identified both supreme and subsequent prior potential suitability for specified utilizations with the representative soils developed on the different geomorphic units of the studied area for the selected twenty one different crops (field crops, vegetables and fruits). | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Wadi El Natrun soils; soil taxonomy; soil limitations; Soil evaluation and suitability for certain crops | ||
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