BASIC SOIL – WATER RELATIONS

Reporter: Quennie Lou T. Mondejar

Both soil and water are essential for plant growth. The soil provides a structural base to the
plants and allows the root system (the foundation of the plant) to spread and get a strong hold. The
pores of the soil within the root zone hold moisture which clings to the soil particles by surface
tension in the driest state or may fill up the pores partially or fully saturating with it useful nutrients
dissolved in water, essential for the growth of the plants. The roots of most plants also require
oxygen for respiration. Hence, full saturation of the soil pores leads to restricted root growth for
these plants.
Since irrigation practice is essentially, an adequate and timely supply of water to the plant root
zone for optimum crop yield, the study of the inter relationship between soil pores, its water-holding
capacity and plant water absorption rate is fundamentally important. Though a study in detail would
mostly be of importance to an agricultural scientist, in this lesson we discuss the essentials which
are important to a water resources engineer contemplating the development of a command area
through scientifically designed irrigation system.

What is SOIL?

 It is a three-dimensional body occupying the upper part of the earth’s crust and having properties
differing from the underlying rock material as a result of interactions between climate, living
organism, parent material and relief and which is distinguished from other soils in terms of
differences in internal characteristics and/or in terms of the gradient slope- complexity, micro
topography, stoniness, and rockiness of the surface.
 It is a superficial covering that overlies the bedrock of most of the land area of the Earth; an
 aggregation of unconsolidated mineral and organic particles produced by physical, chemical,
and biological processes; and the medium that supports the growth of most plants.
Soil is an important natural resource and is the medium within which most AGRICULTURE
takes place. The process of the suitability of land for different uses such as agriculture is
assessed and it is known as land evaluation.

IMPORTANCE OF SOIL
Soil plays a vital role in the Earth’s ecosystem. Without soil human life would be very difficult.
Soil provide plants with foothold for their roots and holds the necessary nutrients for plants to
grow; it filters the rainwater and regulates the discharge of excess rainwater, preventing flooding;
it is capable of storing large amounts of organic carbon; it buffers against pollutants, thus
protecting groundwater quality; it provides man with some essential construction and
manufacturing materials, we build our houses with bricks made from clay, we drink coffee from a
cup that is essentially backed soil(clay); it also presents a record of past environmental conditions

 6 KEY SOIL FUNCTIONS

1. Food and other biomass production
2. Environmental Interaction: storage, filtering, and transformation
3. Biological habitat and gene pool
4. Source of raw materials
5. Physical and cultural heritage
6. Platform for man-made structures: buildings, highways

WHAT IS WATER?
  Water is colorless and odorless substance found all over the earth. Water is made up of
billions of molecules.
 Water on our planet flows as liquid in rivers, streams, and oceans; solid as ice at the
North and South Poles; and is gas (vapor) in the atmosphere.
 Water is also underground and inside plants and animals
IMPORTANCE OF WATER
All living things need water in some form to survive on Earth. Water is an important resource
with many uses including food production, cleaning, transportation, power generation, recreation
and more.
 2 SPECIAL REASONS
1. The presence of water is essential for all life on earth.
Including the lives of plants and organisms in the soil.
2. Water is necessary for the weathering of soil.
Areas with high rainfall typically have highly weathered soils. Since soils vary in their
degree of weathering, it is expected that soils have been affected by different amounts of
water.
SOIL and WATER RELATIONSHIPS
By understanding a little about the soil’s physical properties and its relationship to soil moisture,
we can make better soil – management decisions. Soil texture and structure greatly influence
water infiltration, permeability and water holding capacity.

SOIL PROPERTIES
I. Soil Texture
- Refers to the composition of the soil in terms of the amounts of small (clays), medium
(silts), and large (sands) size particles in a specific soil mass.
- For example, a coarse soil is a sand or loamy sand, a medium soil is a loam, silt loam, or
silt, and a fine soil is sandy clay, silty clay, or clay.
- Coarse textured soils have mainly large particles in between which there are large pores.
On the other hand, fine textured soils have mainly small particles in between which there
are small pores
 Figure 1. USDA textural classification chart

According to textural gradations a soil may be broadly classified as:

 Open or light textural soils: these are mainly coarse or sandy with low content of silt and
clay
 Medium textured soils; these contain sand, silt and clay in sizeable proportions, like
loamy soil
 Tight or heavy textured soils: these contain high proportion of clay
 II. Soil Structure
- Refers to the arrangement of soil particles (sand, silt, and clay) into stable units called
aggregates, which give soil its structure. Aggregates can be loose and friable, or they can
form distinct, uniform patterns.
- For example, granular structure is loose and friable, blocky structure is six-sided and can
have angles or rounded sides, and platelike structure is layered and may indicate
compaction problems.

Figure 2. Soil Structure in relation to water movement

III. Soil Porosity

- Refers to the space between soil particles, which consists of various amounts of water and
air. Porosity depends on both soil texture and soil structure.
- It also tells us a lot about the type of soil or sediment we’re looking at
 - For example, a fine soil, but it has less porosity, or overall pore space. Water can held
tighter in small pores than in large one, so fine soils can hold more water than coarse soils.

WATER INFILTRATION AND SOIL PERMEABILITY

IV. INFILTRATION
- When rain or irrigation water is supplied to a field, it seeps into the soil. This process is
called infiltration.
- The infiltration rate (sometimes called intake rate) of a soil is a measure of its ability to
absorb an amount of rain or irrigation water during a given time period. It commonly is
expressed in inches per hour. It is dependent on the permeability of the surface soil,
moisture content of the soil and surface conditions such as roughness (tillage and plant
residue), slope and plant cover.
Infiltration can be visualized by pouring water into a glass filled with dry powdered soil, slightly
tamped. The water seeps into the soil; the colour of the soil becomes darker as it is wetted (see
Fig. 3).

`Figure 3.

V. PERMEABILITY
- refers to the movement of air and water through the soil, which is important because it
affects the supply of root-zone air, moisture, and nutrients available for plant uptake
- . It is influenced by the size, shape and continuity of the pore spaces, which in turn are
dependent on the soil bulk density, structure and texture.
- which describes how easily water flows.

VI. WATER HOLDING CAPACITY

- Designates the ability of a soil to hold water. It is useful information for irrigation
 scheduling, crop selection, groundwater contamination considerations, estimating runoff
and determining when plants will become stressed.
- Soils with smaller particles (silt and clay) have a larger surface area than those with larger
sand particles, and a large surface area allows a soil to hold more water

Table 2. Range of water holding capacity

for different soil textures

VII. WATER
AVAILABILITY
- Excess or gravitational water drains quickly from the soil after a heavy rain because of
gravitational forces (saturation point to field capacity). Plants may use small amounts of
this water before it moves out of the root zone. Available water is retained in the soil after
the excess has drained (field capacity to wilting point). This water is the most important for
crop or forage production. Plants can use approximately 50 percent of it without exhibiting
 stress, but if less than 50 percent is available, drought stress can result. Unavailable water is
soil moisture that is held so tightly by the soil that it cannot be extracted by the plant. Water
remains in the soil even below plants' wilting point.
Water Availability illustrated in the figure by water levels in three different soil types:

Figure 4.
SOIL WATER OR SOIL MOISTURE
- It means that physical properties of soil in relation to water
- the term for water found in naturally occurring soil.
- the amount of water absorbed by pores
- The rate of entry of water in to the soil and its retention, movement and availability to plant
roots are all physical phenomena. Hence, it is important to know the physical properties of soil in
relation to water.
Classification of Soil Water
Water can exist in either of the following forms in the soil
1. Gravitational water
- “free water”
- Water is rapidly drained from the soil profile by the force of gravity.
- This is the water that drains out of the soil after it has been wetted
- This water is not available for plants use as it drains off rapidly from the root zone
 2. Capillary water
- The water content retained in the soil after the gravitational water has drained off from the
soil
- Plant roots gradually absorb the capillary water and thus constitute the principle source of
water for plant growth

-
3. Hygroscopic water
- Very thin films around the soil particles
- the water attached to soil particles through loose chemical bond
- Hygroscopic water can be removed by oven drying a soil sample in the laboratory.
- this water is considered to be unavailable water for most of field crops
 Figure 4.

Soil Moisture Constants

The following soil moisture contents are of significance importance in agriculture and
are termed soil moisture constants.
1. Saturation Capacity
- When all the micro and macro pore spaces are filled with water, the soil is said to have reached
its saturation capacity. At field capacity, the water is held loosely and tensions are almost
negligible. Thus, plants will not have any difficulty in extracting moisture from soil.

2. Field capacity
- is the moisture content after the gravitational water has drained
down. At field capacity, the macro pores are filled with air & capillary pores filled with water.
Field capacity is the upper limit of available soil moisture. It is often defined as moisture content
in a soil two (light sandy soil) or three (heavy soil), days after having been saturated and after
drainage of gravitational water becomes slow or negligible and moisture content has become
stable.
 4. Permanent Wilting Point
- is the moisture content beyond which plants can no longer extract enough moisture and
remain witted unless water is added to the soil. At this point, a plant will wilt and not
recover

2 STAGES OF WILTING POINT

1. Temporary wilting point
- this denotes the soil water content at which the plant wilts at day time, but recovers during
night or when water is added to the soil.
2. Ultimate wilting point
- at such a soil water content, the plant wilts and fails to regain life even after addition of water
to soil.

Figure 5
Sources:
http://www.fao.org/3/r4082e/r4082e03.htm
https://www.noble.org/news/publications/ag-news-and-views/2001/september/spil-and-
water-relationships/
https://www.earthsciweek.org/classroom-activities/soil-moisture/
https://climate-woodlands.extension.org/soils-and-water-availability/
http://kbsgk12project.kbs.msu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Soil-and-Water-
Relationships.pdf
https://study.com/search/text/academy.html?q=soil+and+water+relationship
https://www.slideshare.net/mdmoorthy/soil-water-plant-relationships
https://www.slideshare.net/eAfghanAg/soil-texture-and-structure
https://www.hunker.com/13427998/different-types-of-soil-water
https://www.cthar.hawaii.edu/mauisoil/a_comp03.aspx
https://www.soilmanagementindia.com/soil-water/soil-water-importance-concepts-and-
classification/1790