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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 44(5)

The hydrology of Vertosols used for cotton production: II. Pedotransfer functions to predict hydraulic properties

R. W. Vervoort A B , B. Minasny A and S. R. Cattle A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, and The Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Centre, Locked Bag 59, Narrabri, NSW 2390, Australia.

B Corresponding author. Email: w.vervoort@usyd.edu.au

Australian Journal of Soil Research 44(5) 479-486 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR05152
Submitted: 26 September 2005  Accepted: 10 April 2006   Published: 4 August 2006

Abstract

Using a range of earlier published results and a recently published dataset, pedotransfer functions (PTFs) were developed to predict some hydraulic properties of Vertosols. A fitting approach using neural networks was employed with good results to predict the soil water characteristic curve. The developed functions are complex due to the large numbers of parameters, but moisture contents are predicted to within 5%. Other PTFs to predict the moisture content at the drained upper limit (DUL) and lower limit (LL), and bulk density in the normal shrinkage curve, were developed using multiple linear regression. The PTFs to predict the soil water characteristic curve, DUL and LL, and the bulk density in the normal shrinkage zone were mainly based on total clay, sand, and silt contents and bulk density, with minor contributions of ECEC and total carbon content. PTFs for unsaturated hydraulic conductivities were also developed using multi-linear regression and were mainly dependent on silt contents and ESP values. The mean error in these predictions was 2.76 mm/h, which is reasonable for predictions at the field and farm scale where inherent soil variability can cause larger variation. The developed PTFs can be used to predict parameters needed in crop modelling tools such as OZCOT to simulate cotton development on Vertosols. Some further examples of the use of the PTFs for management of irrigation are given.

Additional keywords: hydraulic conductivity, shrink-swell soils, Australia, crop model parameters.


Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the Australian Cotton Cooperative Research Center for funding this research through CRC projects 1.2.4 and 3.2.8 and Dr Damien Field for supplying some previously unpublished soil water characteristic data. We also would like to thank a helpful anonymous reviewer who corrected our material coordinate calculations.


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