Comparision of fertility capability and taxonomic classification systems to classify the soil map units in some parts of Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari province

Abstract

Although fertility capability classification (FCC) has high performance in land evaluation and soil maps interpretation, so far it has been less attended in land evaluation studies. Therefore, qualitative (FCC method) and quantitative (Riquer index) land fertility capability evaluation for Wheat and Rice cultivation and comparison of Soil Taxonomy and WRB classification with FCC were chosen as this study objective. After field and laboratory studies, the soil map was prepared with the scale of 1: 50,000. Then, FCC and Riquer methods were used to determine the land fertility capability for Wheat and Rice cultivation for each of the soil map unites. Investigations showed that the FCC and Riquer methods have presented similar results and well interpreted and classified soils. The results of Riquer method indicated that the fertility capability of these lands is good except in gravelly and shallow parts, thus Wheat and Rice can be cultivated in these soils. A comparison of the current soil classification systems and the FCC results showed that the problems and inherent characteristics of studied soils were pointed well by the FCC system, whereas they have been expressed differently in Soil Taxonomy and WRB classifications. Gleyic condition, dryness and subsoil gravel are the most limitative factors to Wheat and Rice cultivation in this area.