e-ISSN 2231-8542
ISSN 1511-3701
Christopher Teh Boon Sung and Jane Iba
Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, Volume 33, Issue 2, August 2010
Keywords: Organic matter, Saxton-Rawls, soil water characteristics, soil water retention, texture
Published on:
The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the Saxton-Rawls method in estimating the soil water characteristics of a wide range of mineral soils of Malaysia. This study found that it was necessary to calibrate the Saxton-Rawls method for the soils of Malaysia. The developed equation for calibration was Pˆi = a · Pi (1-Pi), where Pi and Pˆi are the uncalibrated and calibrated estimated values, respectively, for the soil sample no. i, and the parameter values of a were 2.225, 1.605, and 1.528 (for saturation, field capacity, and permanent wilting point) respectively. The calibrated method was validated against three independent soil data sets. The validation tests showed that the calibrated method remained stable and was more accurate than that without any calibration, by an average between 8 to 49%.
ISSN 1511-3701
e-ISSN 2231-8542