A novel poly(acrylic acid-co-acrylamide)AlZnFe₂O₄/potassium humate( )superabsorbent hydrogel nanocomposite (PHNC) was synthesized and its physical properties characterized using SEM, Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) and FTIR spectroscopic techniques. Air dried sandy loam soil was amended with 0.1 to 0.4 w/w% of PHNC to evaluate its soil moisture retention attributes. Effect of PHNC amendment on pH...

The effects of four soil types, soil porosity, particle size, and organic matter were tested on survival and migration of Xiphinema americanum. Survival and migration were significantly greater in silt loam than in clay loam and silty clay soils. Nematode numbers were significantly greater in softs planted with soybeans than in fallow softs. Nematode survival was greatest at the higher of two p...

Computed tomography (CT) is a technique that provides images of different solid and porous materials. CT could be an ideal tool to study representative sizes of soil samples because of the noninvasive characteristic of this technique. The scrutiny of such representative elementary sizes (RESs) has been the target of attention of many researchers related to soil physics field owing to the strong...

Field experiments indicate that the use of off-road vehicles on arid land increases the amount and frequency of water runoff and erosion by decreasing soil porosity, infiltration capacity, effectiveness of surface stabilizers, and hydraulic resistance to overland flow. These effects are long-lived and may result even when the use of these vehicles is slight.

The degree of compactness (D) has been de®ned earlier as the dry bulk density of a soil in percent of a reference bulk density obtained by a standardized uniaxial compression test on large samples at a stress of 200 kPa. It was primarily aimed for use in annually disturbed soil layers. Field experiments have demonstrated its usefulness for characterizing the state of compactness from a crop pro...

We present an approach for process conceptualization in hillslope hydrology. We develop and implement a series of virtual experiments, whereby the interaction between water flow pathways, source and mixing at the hillslope scale is examined within a virtual experiment framework. We define these virtual experiments as ‘numerical experiments with a model driven by collective field intelligence’. ...

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) proliferate in soils and are known to affect soil structure. Although their contribution to structure is extensively investigated, the consequences of those processes for soil water extractability and transport has, so far, gained surprisingly little attention. Therefore we asked, whether AMF can affect water retention and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity un...