Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science
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Pertanika ยท Universiti Putra Malaysia Press

Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science

Official journal of Universiti Putra Malaysia for peer-reviewed research across tropical agriculture and allied agricultural sciences.

e-ISSN 2231-8542 ISSN 1511-3701
Research article

Accuracy of the Saxton-Rawls Method for Estimating the Soil Water Characteristics for Mineral Soils of Malaysia

Christopher Teh Boon Sung and Jane Iba

KeywordsOrganic matter, Saxton-Rawls, soil water characteristics, soil water retention, texture
Article content

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of the Saxton-Rawls method in estimating the soil water characteristics of a wide range of mineral soils of Malaysia. This study found that it was necessary to calibrate the Saxton-Rawls method for the soils of Malaysia. The developed equation for calibration was i = a · Pi (1-Pi), where Pi and i are the uncalibrated and calibrated estimated values, respectively, for the soil sample no. i, and the parameter values of a were 2.225, 1.605, and 1.528 (for saturation, field capacity, and permanent wilting point) respectively. The calibrated method was validated against three independent soil data sets. The validation tests showed that the calibrated method remained stable and was more accurate than that without any calibration, by an average between 8 to 49%.