Wetting and drying cycles, organic amendments, and gypsum play a key role in structure formation and stability of sodic Vertisols

Niaz, Sara; Wehr, J. Bernhard; Dalal, Ram C.; Kopittke, Peter M.; Menzies, Neal W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-141-2023

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-141-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-141-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 1

Original research article

|

03 Mar 2023

Original research article |

| 03 Mar 2023

Wetting and drying cycles, organic amendments, and gypsum play a key role in structure formation and stability of sodic Vertisols

Sara Niaz, J. Bernhard Wehr, Ram C. Dalal, Peter M. Kopittke, and Neal W. Menzies

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/soil-9-141-2023-supplement

Data sets

Wetting and drying cycles, organic amendments and gypsum play a key role in structure for- mation and stability of sodic Vertisols S. Niaz and B. Wehr https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7646256

Short summary

Sodic soils affect ~580 Mha in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. These soils have a weak structure. This laboratory study evaluated treatments to overcome the weak aggregate structure in two sodic Vertisols by applying organic amendments, gypsum, and wetting–drying cycles. We conclude that sodic soils need to be treated with gypsum to flocculate clay and organic amendments (lucerne or chicken manure) to form aggregates, whereas drying cycles aid in small macroaggregates formation.