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Moisture Available to Various Crops in Some New Jersey Soils¹

ABSTRACT

Moisture available to wheat, potatoes, tomatoes, and sweet corn was determined by combining moisture retaining characteristics of soils, and depths to which crops exploit the water reservoir. Soil types on which some or all of the crops were grown included Sassafras and Nixon loams, Penn silt loam, and Collington loamy sand.

Available water in a unit depth varied with soil type and with horizon in a given soil type.

Effective rooting depth of a crop was defined as the maximum depth to which soil continued to lose moisture after a prolonged period of rainless weather. Moisture samples determined gravimetrically were each referred to a standard of 100 cm. water tension to give relative wetness values. When depth vs. relative wetness was plotted, effective rooting depth was a clearly defined point below which insignificant quantities of water were obtained by plants.

Effective rooting depth of sweet corn varied with soil type from 11 to 35 inches. It also varied on a given soil with kind and age of crop.

When differences in rooting depth were combined with moisture in unit depth, tomatoes had about four times as much water at their disposal in Sassafras loam as in Nixon loam. Wheat had less than half as much as tomatoes when both were growing on Sassafras loam.

¹ Paper of the Journal Series, New Jersey Agr. Exp. Sta., Rutgers Univ., the State University of New Jersey, department of soils; and contribution from SCS Research, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Part of a thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Rutgers Univ. by the senior author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Presented before Division I, Soil Science Society of America, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 19, 1952.

² Former graduate student; assistant research specialist, and cooperative agent, SCS.

Received for publication February 21, 1953.