Soil Water Studies on Oxisols and Ultisols of Puerto Rico: IV. A Comparison of Techniques to Determine Water Retention at Various Tensions

Abstract

An over estimation of soil water storage would be made by employing either disturbed sample techniques at low tensions or undisturbed core samples at high tensions. To avoid this, undisturbed core samples should be used to measure water retention in the wet range (0 to 1 bar) and disturbed samples, to measure water retention in the dry range (1 to 15 bars). It is suggested that soil water release curves be developed by relating field measurements of soil water tension with results from gravimetric sampling.