Research through the 1960's was largely devoted to understanding the movement of heat and water through soil under controlled laboratory conditions. During the last 25-30 years, the focus of Soil Physics has shifted from the laboratory to the field, and expanded from agricultural to environmental applications. The emphasis of modern research is on the measurement and prediction of field-scale processes such as solute transport, crop water use, erosion, and regional ground water recharge. The purpose of placing project descriptions in this World Wide Web format is to invite comments and suggestions from, as well as to offer results to interested colleagues.
Most results shown here are preliminary and unpublished.
The soil physics group is conducting research on water and nitrogen management under irrigated Pecans. The group is also beginning the development of a Pecan growth and development model. The project includes collaboration with the US Army Corp on the development of a rangeland ecological model. This study evaluated the potential correlation between spoil property and size fraction. An investigation of the variable behavior of electrical conductivity cell constants, a comparison of methods used to measure saturation percentage, an improved sap-flow gauge designed to monitor transpiration in desert shrubs, and an improved method for reading laboratory soil psychrometers.