Thermal regime of mollisols under high water-table conditions

✍ Scribed by R.P. Tripathi; B.P. Ghildyal

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1979
• Weight: 574 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0002-1571
• DOI: 10.1016/0002-1571(79)90042-6

✦ Synopsis

The temperature variations in the Mollisols of the Tarai region of Uttar Pradesh, India are described. The water-table depth in the experimental field ranged from 60 to 140 cm. The diurnal and annual periodicities in temperature wave indicate that soil temperature changes are rapid in the surface 0--15 cm layer and decrease progressively with depth. There is a pronounced peak and trough in the temperature curves between the 24th and • o 0 o 41st week of the year. The soil temperature varms from 8 to 47 C at the surface, 15 o o o .

to 33 C at 40 cm depth, and 19 to 29 C at 175 cm depth. Analys~s of the temperature variation in the different crop seasons shows that at 40 cm depth the soil temperature varies from 31 ° to 27°C in the monsoon crop season (from the 3rd week in June to October), and 15 ° to 24°C in the winter crop season (from November onwards). During the monsoon crop season the temperature variations at 40 cm depth are only 2°C (31 ° to 29°C) between the 3rd week in June and September, apparently due to the increase in soil wetness associated with the rise of the water table and the rainfall during this period.

In the month of October the profile as a whole attains almost isothermal conditions except in the surface layers that are affected by the diurnal wave.