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| Titel |
Potential hydrophobicity of a sandy soil induced by the litter of three Mediterranean aromatic plants |
| VerfasserIn |
Maria Desamparados Soriano, Maria Jose Molina, Josep Llinares, Pilar Salvador |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250049895
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| Zusammenfassung |
| There are few studies on the influence on soil hydrophobicity of different types and amounts of organic matter coming from leaves of aromatic plant species in the Mediterranean scrub. The objective of this paper is to analyze if different types and contents of the organic matter coming from the leaves of the very abundant Mediterranean aromatic species Rosmarinus officinalis l., Thymus vulgaris l. and Lavandula latifolia Medic. induce different degrees of water repellence. The experiment was conducted under controlled laboratory conditions in a total of eighteen pots. Three pots of a sandy soil with low contents of carbonates and organic matter were used per treatment. Treatments consisted on the addition of 5, 10 and 40% (by weight) of air-dried leaves of each of the aromatic species. The soil plus the added litter mixed in the pots were subjected to alternating cycles of wetting and drying for a period of several months in order to facilitate litter decomposition and incorporation to the soil. Samples of the oven-dry soil in each pot were homogenized and placed in five Petri dishes for measuring the absorption time of ten drops of water (WDPT test). The same design and procedure was used to measure the absorption time of ten drops of different ethanol concentrations (3 to 50%, MED test).
Measured absorption time depended on the type of litter added and on the organic matter content of the soil. For similar organic matter contents, absorption time increased in the order Rosemary > Thyme ≥ Lavender indicating that the litter of Rosemary plants induced more repellence to the soil due to its composition. For concentrations of 3% organic matter and very dry soil, the WDPT was respectively, 4, 0.6 and 0.30 h, equivalent to ethanol concentrations ranging from 24 to 8%. These results allow classifying the dry sandy soils with rosemary litter as very highly hydrophobic, and those with thyme and lavender litter from moderate to slightly hydrophobic. |
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