EXPERIMENTAL PLOTS – SOIL PHYSICAL PARAMETERS
Since 2004 recurring surveys were carried out to measure soil physical properties in the Cannona Erosion Plots. The measurements were performed once or twice at year, before tillage operations, on three transects in each plot. As the traffic of agricultural machinery is repeated on fixed routes, the measurements of penetration resistance (PR), bulk density (BD) and volumetric soil water content (SWC) were done both in the central part of the inter-row and in the tractor track.
Measurement of soil moisture content and soil temperature were performed starting from August 2011 to allow continuous monitoring of parameters that can provide an evaluation of space-time hydrological processes, determining the surface runoff response to a given precipitation events. Integrated temperature-soil moisture sensors were installed in the topsoil and measures were recorded in one-hour intervals by a data logger.
Soil physical parameters