Addressing Soil Chloride Variability and Its Management
Addressing Soil Chloride Variability and Its Management, 1998 In the northern Great Plains, grid sampling is not used by many wheat producers because of its expense. To be profitable, responsive areas within fields (less than 30 lb Cl/A 2 ft) need to be characterized by a minimum number of soil samples. Five sites (Mandan, Valley City, Colfax, Gardner, and Hunter) in North Dakota were selected in order to study Cl variability. Each of these sites was sampled at small grid spacings.
IPNI-1996-USA-ND8
01 Mar 1997
1996 Annual Interpretive Summary
Addressing Soil Chloride Variability and Its Management, 1996
Four sites in North Dakota were selected in order to study soil chloride variability. This study has been conducted partially to investigate undocumented reports of chloride response in soils that test high in chloride, where no response is expected. The other purpose of this study was to determine the most appropriate soil sampling scheme for chloride. Grid sampling was employed at each site, with soil samples extending to a two foot depth for chloride determination. Analysis of the soil data consisted of comparing different grid densities as well as sampling by landscape position. Results have shown that chloride is spatially variable, and tends to follow patterns of landscape, although this relationship is not as strong as it is for nitrate. When chloride levels are high, chloride distribution tends to be more clustered. When chloride levels are low to medium, levels tend to be more related to landscape position. This work demonstrates that composite soil samples representing larger areas may not be representative of chloride levels existing in large parts of the field. ND-08F