Abstract

This study has been carried out to investigate the translocation-illuviation status of iron and manganese, which are striking phenomena in paddy soils, in relation to its morphological characteristics, and to find out a method to identify illuvial layer of iron quantitatively. Determination of active iron and easily reducible manganese content in surface soils of lowland paddy (266 samples) in Korea were conducted. The examination has been made on relationship between morphological, physico-chemical properties of the representative paddy soils (9 series) and iron and manganese content of their horizons. The results are summarized as follows. 1. The poorer the drainage, the higher concentration of active iron and easily reducible manganese were found, and under same drainage condition, the more the sand, the lower the content of them. 2. Irrespective of soil texture and drainage, highly signignificant positive correlation was found between the contents of active iron ($\hat{Y}$) and clay plus silt in surface soils. $$\hat{Y}=0.3929+(0.05352\;X\;clay%)+(0.0001023\;X\;silt%){\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;I$$ No correlation, however, was found between clay content and easily reducible manganese concentration. 3. Significant positive correlation was obtained between active iron ($\hat{Y}$) and total iron (x) content in each profiles of all soil series. Obtained regression equation is as follows; $$\hat{Y}=0.361x-0.480(r=0.651^{**}){\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;{\ldots}\;II$$ On the other hand, easily reducible manganese concentration had a tendency to increase, not significantly, with increasing total manganese concentration. 4. Accumulation of iron and manganese generally can be found in paddy soils, but distinct accumulation was found under moderately well drained fine loamy and clay soils, while surface accumulation occurred under poor drainage without regard to soil texture. 5. Profile description or determination of active iron in each horizon were found to be insufficient to designate illuvial layer of iron. Therefore, identification of illuvial layer of iron based on the ratio of total iron and active iron, and concentration of active iron estimated by the content of clay plus silt (Equation 1 above) was thought to be reasonable. Also, manganese accumulation layer would be estimated by total manganese and easily reducible manganese content and their ratio.

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