field capacity in Q3, problem set 2
From Course talk:APBI200
We've defined field capacity as the water content of soil after rapid drainage. We've also defined field capacity as being a soil's water content when its matrix potential is somewhere between -10 and -30 kPa.
In question 3 of the problem set, these definitions seem to conflict with the red soil. How do I square this?
Spencer, Consider that the concept of field capacity is qualitative (i.e. descriptive) thus the qualitative definition of the water content of soil after the "rapid" drainage (or water drained by gravity). Quantitatively we define this value as the soil water content at -10 to -33 KPa (depending on soil texture). Thus we measure field capacity of the "red" soil in question #3 (problem set #2) at -33 KPa.
SandraBrown (talk)