Topic > Vertisol Soils: Dark Clays - 1675

Vertisols are a group of heavy textured soils found in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate zones. They could be called Dark Clays and many different names linked above all to their dark color; 60% of Vertisols are found in the tropics, 30% in the subtropics and 10% in colder regions. Vertisol's main areas are located in Australia, India, Sudan, Chad, United States, China and Ethiopia. Vertisols are an important soil in agriculture, although they cover only a small area of ​​the Earth's surface. The main factor contributing to the productivity of Vertisols in semi-arid environments is their high water-holding capacity; this is important in areas with uncertain and variable rainfall. The ability of vertisols to store sufficient water to transport crops during periods of drought is of great importance. However, some of their physical characteristics cause some problems for growing crops. Vertisols are found in areas with average rainfall between 500 and 1000 mm per year, but are also found in the very humid tropics where it rains up to 3000 mm per year. Larger Vertisols are found on sediments that have a high content of semctite clays or on post-depositional weathering and basaltic plateaus. They are typically found in lower landscape locations; for example, the bottom of dry lakes, river basins, and periodically wet plains. Depending on the source rock and weather conditions, they can occur on plains, residual land or gently sloping hillsides. Vertisols are mainly soils that have a high content of expanded clay and which in some periods of the year have deep and wide cracks. They shrink when they dry and swell when they get wet. Vertisols are mineral soils that exist in a well-balanced moisture supply or warmer soil temperature… in paper media… and in subsurface soil. The soil must have great cohesion to transfer pressures up to the soil surface for gilgai to form. Morphological characteristics such as color, texture, composition, etc. They are uniform throughout the solum. There is no movement of soluble soil components. A concentration of soft, powdery lime may be present within or below the vertical horizon. The gypsum can be distributed uniformly on the matrix or in layers of gypsum crystals. Vertisols have a uniform particle size distribution throughout the solum, but the texture can change abruptly where the substrate is reached. Dry Vertisols are very hard while wet Vertisols are plastic and sticky (Jewitt et al. 1979). It is generally true that Vertisols are friable over a narrow range of moisture, but their physical properties are strongly influenced by soluble salts or adsorbed sodium (Fao.org, 2014).