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W Texas | What is the best time to sample a soil for EC in regards to irrigation or rainfall events, particularly if I want to compare my soils to research papers on salinity tolerance, sodicity, etc and guesstimate how well salts are moving through the soil?
I've been testing soils for years and find that my EC, SAR and percent Sodium is low directly after an irrigation event (obviously due to leaching of salts) and can be extremely high after the surface is dried (capillary action depositing salt on the surface as the soil dries) Water averages SAR 10 and TDS 900-2200. High bicarbonate and sulfate. pH average 7.8-8.0. Extremely tight, high fertility lake bottom soils with low water table.
Can grow good winter crops and the tolerant summer crops under flood or pivots. The soil tests would often predict that these soils would struggle to grow anything, but after irrigation they test much better and crops seem fine, provided summer crops are selected for salinity tolerance.
My impression is that as long as the soils are testing well immediately after irrigations, the salt is moving through the soil and I should be ok long term. Build up the moisture profile and can bury a 5' tile probe, so don't think I am developing any fragipan layers.
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Accurately measuring trend of ECe of an irrigated soil.
