Evaluation of soil property variability within the Alabama Mesonet

Soil productivity can be greatly affected by spatial variability among soil physical and chemical properties. For this reason, a better understanding of these properties and their variability is essential for the continued efficient use of our soils. Applications like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) provide newly advanced methods for assessing soil property variability by combining spatial and non-spatial data. The objectives of this study were i) to evaluate the soil property variability of five soils native to the Alabama Mesonet (ALMNet) and ii) to apply GTS as an alternate method for assessing the spatial variability of soil properties. The study sites, which were located throughout Northern Alabama, constitute five of the combination meteorological/soil profile stations that make up the ALMNet. These sites consist of soils native to Alabama´s Limestone Valleys and Uplands and the Appalachian Plateau. In order to characterize the properties of these soils, analysis were performed to determine pH, gravimetric water content, and percent organic matter, sand, silt, and clay. The soil properties were tested to determine if there were any statistical differences by site location, soil depth, and sampling position. Interestingly, results indicated that there were significant differences observed for the soil properties by site location and soil depth. However, there were no significant differences observed for either of the soils by sampling position.