West Virginia Success Story

Soil Survey Staff Fall 2007 Field Week

Program or Category: Soil Survey

Overview: The West Virginia Soil Survey Staff held their Fall 2007 Field Week October 1 – 5, 2007 in Hardy County's Trout Run watershed. This year, the staff is focusing on seasonal infiltration and subsurface water dynamics across Benchmark soils in MLRA-147.

Accomplishments: “Many folks do not realize that we have changed units of measurement in our soil physical properties, particularly water movement” says Steve Carpenter, state soil scientist. “We have changed from the familiar soil permeability in inches per hour to Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity (Ksat) in micrometers per second”. This allows for our data to be easily translated into several different formulas for ease of use. Ksat refers to the ease with which pores in saturated soil transmit water. These measurements are based on soil characteristics that are observed in the field and can vary widely by 10-fold for a single soil series. At the Fall field week, three teams sampled six pedons for complete characterization and set up instrumentation for the measurement of infiltration and seasonal water dynamics. The staff employed the Amoozemeter and Double Ring Infiltrometer to measure saturated hydraulic conductivity and a Tension Infiltrometer to measure infiltration at 4 water tensions. They will repeat the procedure in early Spring 2008. In the soil survey database, we report that Ksat on the soils in Trout Run have a Ksat range between 3 and 80 micrometers per second.

Program Benefits to Community: “We want to make sure that what we have in our database matches what we have on the ground and observed values are better than derived data”, Carpenter says. Ksat values are important for soil interpretations such as Hydrologic Soil Groups and nutrient management interpretations. “We are also interested in hillslope water dynamics as it relates to drought mitigation and prediction”.

Contact: Stephen Carpenter, MLRA Project Leader
(304) 284-7585
Stephen.Carpenter@wv.usda.gov

West Virginia USDA-NRCS
Major Land and Resource Area Office #13
75 High Street, Room 30
Morgantown, WV 26505
Phone: (304) 284-7540 Fax: (304) 284-4839
http://www.wv.nrcs.usda.gov/mlra13.html

	Trout Run in Hardy County was the study area for the Fall 2007 Field Week.
	Don Flegel is reading Amoozementer. Estella Ruth, NRCS volunteer and PA NRCS employee on educational leave is reading the Tensiometer.
	Dr. Steve De Gloria (Cornell University) is describing the soil profile.
	Steve Carpenter is reading the Tensiometer.
	Eileen O'Neill is calculating Frame Bulk Density.
	Mike Jones is setting up the Tension Infiltrometer.

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