Development and Evaluation of Pedotransfer Functions to Estimate Soil Moisture Content at Field Capacity and Permanent Wilting Point for South African Soils

This study was undertaken to develop new pedotransfer functions (PTFs) for the estimation of soil moisture content at field capacity (FC, −33 kPa) and permanent wilting point (PWP, −1500 South African soils based on easily measurable physico-chemical properties. The PTFs were developed using stepwise multiple linear regressions with dependent variable (either FC or PWP) against clay, silt, sand organic carbon (SOC) from a total 3171 horizons as explanatory variables. These evaluated compared five well-established 3136 an independent dataset. coefficient determination (r2) values existing ranged 0.65–0.72 0.72–0.81 PWP, whilst those in this 0.77 0.82 respectively. root mean square error (RMSE) 0.052–0.058 kg kg−1 0.030–0.036 0.047 0.029 findings suggest that derived locally large number acquired different agro-climatic locations improved PWP. Due range conditions datasets used study, it is concluded these can be applied caution other regions facing data scarcity but similar types climatic conditions.