Subsoil water available in suction and poor in amount under continuous grassland use

Abstract

Soil water storage in grassland is critical to regulate herbage yield while it may be threatened by continuous land use without plowing because of the progress of soil compaction associated with worsening soil hydraulic properties. This study aimed at contrasting the quantity and the availability of soil water in a meadow which had not been renovated for 13 years. We monitored matric potentials and mass soil water contents to 100 cm depth from autumn to winter in which plant transpiration was dormant. Soil water capacities were determined with soil water characteristics. The measurements were made in both a harvesting area in which agricultural vehicles had been operated, and a tree cover area which had experienced almost no vehicle loads. The soil layer in the tree cover area had a larger capacity for readily available moisture than that in the harvesting area. The matric potentials in the tree cover area varied in time between 0 and -1000 cm regardless of depth while those in the harvesting area were rather steady. These suggested better pore water continuity in the tree cover area. In the subsoil layers in both the harvesting and the tree cover areas, the soil water contents in terms of actually stored water did not reach as high a level as those expected from the soil moisture characteristics of the matric potential of -1000 cm. On the other hand, the measured matric potentials were consistently readily available for plants during the entire period of measurement. The apparent discrepancy between the matric potentials in readily available vs. actually stored water implied that the subsoil layers had become drier than observed during the study period, and that soil water hysteresis had prevented the full recovery of the water storage.