Sandy Soil Essay

Modification of sandy soil hydro-physical environment through bagasse additive under proper laboratory experiment

Abd El-Halim Abd El-Halim 1* and Arunsiri Kumlung 2

1 Department of Soil & Water, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Tanta, 31527 Tanta, Egypt

2 Department of Soil Science, Faculty of Agriculture at Kamphaeng Saen Campus, Kasetsart University, Thailand

*, corresponding author e-mail: [e-mail]

Abstract

Sandy soils until yet can be considered as one group having common hydro-physical problems. Therefore, a laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the influence of bagasse as an amendment to improve hydro-physical properties of sandy soil through determine the bulk density, aggregate-size distribution, total porosity,

Sandy soils are practically important economic resource for agricultural production in many parts of the world. Although sandy soils differ in their origin, formation and properties, yet they can be considered as one group having common problems (Shepherd et al., 2002; Bruand et al., 2005; Wanas and Omran, 2006). The problems that we are facing here are the hydro-physical properties, such as loss structure which associated with low total porosity, rapid hydraulic conductivity and low water retention.

Bagasse is the fibrous residue of corn stalk that is obtained after the extraction of sugarcane juice by the milling process. The ready availability of bagasse, as a byproduct of sugar production, has always made it an attractive fuel for the sugar industry, and covers the energy requirements (electricity/steam) of the industry. Thus, it has been used as fuel in the boilers of the sugar factories since the beginning of the 20th century. These wastes need better utilization instead of burns. One of the promising approaches to use bagasse waste is as a low-cost soil

When contacting angle equals Zero, the pore diameter corresponds to pressure 0.1, 0.33 and 15 bars are equal to 28.8, 8.6 and 0.19 µm, respectively. Pore space classified to pore with a diameter >28.8 µm as rapid drainable pores (RDP) or “macropores”, while pore with diameter 28.8-0.19 µm as water holding pores (WHP) and pore with a diameter <0.19 µm as fine capillary pores (FCP) classified as “micropores” (Gonçalves et al., 2010).

The data were analyzed statistically using MSTATCTM version 2.0. Two-way ANOVA was used to determine the significant differences between means of all soil hydro-physical characteristics under different bagasse-amended soil treatments. The significant differences between means were tested using Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference Test at the 5 % level.