HEGAB I.A., A. E. HASSANIN AND E. E. MASSOUD( 2014). Assessment of soil suitability for agricultural purposes in the western desert outskirt at arment area, upper egypt region.J. Biol. Chem. Environ. Sci., 2014, Vol. 9(1): 347-366
Abstract: The area under study represents one of the highly promising areas for agricultural investment in the Upper Egypt region. The current work was carried out to investigate the main soil characteristics that refer to the economical agriculture in some of desert outskirts adjacent to the utilized area, and it lies at 7km north west of Armant
district, Qena Governorate. To achieve this target, thirteen soil profiles were selected to represent, the virgin desert outskirt. The obtained results showed that the proposed irrigation water resource (amended sewage effluent) was evaluated according to its
suitability degree as (C2-S1), where the ECiw and SAR laying within the range of 0.75- 3.00 dS/m and < 6.0, respectively. In addition, although the values of the N,P,K (macronutrients), Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, B (micronutrients), Cd, Ni, Pb and Co (heavy metals) are relatively high than those found in the main irrigation resource in Egypt (the Nile water), yet their levels are still laying within the permissible limits for irrigation water. According to the morphological description, climatic conditions, physical, chemical
analysis and USDA (2010), the studied soils could be classified as: a) Typic Calcigypsids, coarse loamy or loamy- skeletal, mixed, hyper thermic; and b) Typic Haplocalcids, Sandy or coarse loamy or loamyskeletal, mixed, hyperthermic. The obtained data of parametric evaluation system revealed that topography, soil texture, CaCO3, gypsum and salinity/ alkalinity are considered the main limitations controlling soil productivity for agricultural purposes in the studied area, with variable intensity
degrees of moderate, very severe- moderate, slight, slight and moderate- slight, respectively. Also, the current suitability assessment of the studied soil profiles indicated that about 3/4 of the studied area are considered marginally suitable soils and the rest are not suitable ones. For raising the capability potential of these soils, soil improvement practices should be carried out such as land leveling and removing the excess of soluble salts through applying the leaching requirements under an efficient drainage ditches. Such agro-management practices can be corrected the ratings of soil
potential suitability classes for the studied soils to be categorized into two almost equal areas belonging both the moderately (S2) and marginally (S3) suitable soils. In spite of some localities (soil sites 1, 2 and 3) showed moderate levels of N, P, K and Fe according to the critical limits of nutrients. The majority soils under investigation were suffering from nutrients insufficient for N, P, K, Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu at the root zone. It was note worthy to mention that the threaten their fertile status is due to coarser in soil texture, weak in soil structure, very low organic matter content and low soil potentiality for plant nutrients supplying power that inherited from their origin sediments, as well as, these soils were not partially capable to retain neither adequate water nor nutrients for the grown plants.
Keywords: (Land evaluation, physical and chemical properties, water quality )
