Wetting Dynamics of Water Repellent Soil.

Water repellency is not necessarily a ‘bad’ situation, as long as the mechanisms that govern capillary control are well understood, and irrigation is planned accordingly. Most of the soil water movement studies in water repellent soils fall into two categories, soils with only the sand size fraction being repellent (the Australian example), and soils where the entire particle size distribution is repellent (post fire example). Adding a new perspective to this knowledge base, we present a study on Quincy soil with strong repellency only in the fine size fraction. The water movement in these three situations should be expected to be different, and irrigation practices need to be designed accordingly.