Engineering and physico-chemical properties of soils of deltaic region of West Bengal. Part-II : Physico-chemical and agricultural properties of soils and attempts for correlation with engineering properties

Department of Chemistry, Kalyani University, Kalyani-741 235, West Bengal, India Soil Mechanis Section, River Research Institute, West Bengal, P.O. HRRI, Nadia, West Bengal, India Emeritus Fellow, AICTE, Kalyani Govt. Engineering College, Kalyani-741 235. West Bengal, India E-mail : sujitclahiri @yahoo.com Manuscript received 12 October 2007, revised 27 February 2009, accepted 17 March 2009 Index and engineering properties (like moisture content, liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity etc.) of soils of deltaic region of West Bengal were studied and reported in Part-1 of this paper. In Part-11 of this paper, the physicochemical properties of soils like moisture content pH, EC, exchangeable cations (K+, Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+) and cations under stress conditions were determined. The results were utilized to determine SAR (sodium absorption ratio), KG (Gapon constant), PBCK (potential buffering capacity of K) and K-status of soils. The parameters are important for the proper management of soils in agronomy. Exchangeable Na+ Ions appears to be considerable and may affect KG but it is not usually taken into consideration. Attempts to correlate the engineering property of soils (like particle size distribution) with concentrations of exchangeable ions are not successful