Comparative topsoil characterization of sawah rice fields in selected inland valleys around Bida, north-central Nigeria: textural, structural and hydrophysical properties

Abstract

Although the West African inland valleys are characteristically wet all-year-round, their hydrological conditions are known to be site-specific and may differ markedly between the rainy and the dry seasons. Information on their physical properties would be useful for proper water management under the sawah rice culture and for planning dry season cropping. Representative inland valleys at four locations (Gadza, Nasarafu, Shaba-Maliki and Ejeti) around Bida in the Guinea savanna zone of Nigeria were selected for the study. Apart from Ejeti where the soil is clay loam, the predominant texture is sandy loam. The total and classified water-stable aggregates (WSA) were lowest at Ejeti, followed by Nasarafu. On the average, over 82% of the WSA were below 1.0 mm. Variations among the locations progressively decreased from the largest to the smallest aggregate-size class. Aggregate stability, as evaluated by both sand-corrected WSA and the mean weight diameter (MWD), followed similar trend as the WSA. Values were generally low for soil organic matter (SOM) (0.8–2.2%), but moderate for bulk density (0.98–1.55 Mg m−3) and total porosity (40.6–62.6%). Overall, Ejeti maintained the most favourable values of these three parameters, followed by Shaba-Maliki, Nasarafu and Gadza in the order listed. Micropores constituted over 87% of the soils’ pore system. Saturated hydraulic conductivities were, however, highly variable; indicating lowest rates at Ejeti. Clay fraction correlated positively with the unstable (<0.25 mm) aggregates and porosity parameters, but negatively with other structural indices. The SOM correlated negatively and positively with MWD and total porosity, respectively. Soil–water management implications of these results are discussed.