The Relationship Between Cation Exchange Capacity, Total Bases, and Exchange Acidity in Certain Oregon Soils PDF Download

Author: Clara Ju-Yuan Lin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Soils
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Two soils representative of the coast and three representing the Willamette Valley have been studied for their general chemical characteristics. Exchange capacity and exchangeable cations were determined by the ammonium acetate and the BaCl2-triethanolamine buffer methods. Exchange capacity was also obtained from conductimetric titrations which were run on each soil before and after destroying the organic matter. Potentiometric titrations were run before and after leaching each soil with HCl. Lime requirement was determined by Woodruff's method and also obtained from the pH-lime curves. The two coastal soils, Astoria and Clatsop, have lower pH and base saturation and higher organic matter content and exchange capacity than the Melbourne, Olympic, and Willamette soils from the valley. The Melbourne soil had the highest base saturation percentage and Astoria had the lowest. The amount of exchangeable aluminum was also higher in the coastal soils. The amount of exchange capacity contributed to the organic fraction was 65 per cent in the Olympic and Willamette soils and 50 per cent in the other three. The value for exchange capacity by the different methods was in good agreement in the three valley soils before and after the organic matter was destroyed. In the coastal soils there was no agreement between methods in any case. This would indicate that in the latter two soils, type of clay mineral present may be more of an influence than in the former soils. The potentiometric titration curves showed that the two coastal soils were well buffered and the valley soils were only slightly buffered. After the soils were leached with HCl the Melbourne soil was the only one which indicated a strong acid property. The exchange properties of the soils as affected by additions of lime were studied by incubating the soils for four weeks with added increments of lime. With each added increment of lime the pH increased and exchangeable acidity decreased in each soil. The amount of lime to bring the soils to any given degree of base saturation appeared to be proportional to the magnitude of the exchange capacity and inversely proportional to the degree of base saturation. At any given pH value there was a considerable difference in the degree of base saturation for these soils. This might well be a reflection of the type of minerals present in the different soils. More lime was required to bring the two coastal soils up to pH 6.5 as indicated by the pH-lime relationship curve than that estimated by the Woodruff method. Consistent results were observed in the three valley soils. This suggests that the buffer solution at pH 7 as recommended by Woodruff was not strong enough to neutralize the acidity in the coastal soils. There was good agreement between the two methods in the determination of the exchangeable bases. The BaCl2-buffer method gave much higher values of exchangeable acidity than did the ammonium acetate method. These values, when converted to tons of calcium carbonate, agree fairly closely with the amount of lime required to bring the soils to pH 7 when added directly to the soil. When lime was added above the saturation point the amount of exchangeable calcium as determined by the ammonium acetate method increased but remained relatively constant for the BaCl2-buffer method. The various analysis seem to indicate that the Astoria and Clatsop soils contain predominantly 2:1 type clay minerals while the Olympic and Willamette soils contain predominantly the 1:1 type. The Melbourne soil exhibits properties more closely associated with the coastal soils.