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Concept
Podzol
Summary
In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of human interference through grazing and burning. In some British moorlands with podzolic soils, cambisols are preserved under Bronze Age barrows.
Podzol means "under-ash" and is derived from the Russian под (pod) + зола́ (zola); the full form is подзо́листая по́чва (podzolistaya pochva), meaning "under-ashed soil". The term was first given in mid-1875 by Vasily Dokuchaev. It refers to the common experience of Russian peasants of plowing up an apparent under-layer of ash (leached or E horizon) during first plowing of a virgin soil of that type.
Podzols can occur on almost any parent material but generally derive from either quartz-rich sands and sandstone or sedimentary debris from magmatic rocks, provided there is high precipitation. Most Podzols are poor soils for agriculture due to the sandy portion, resulting in a low level of moisture and nutrients. Some are sandy and excessively drained. Others have shallow rooting zones and poor drainage due to subsoil cementation. A low pH further compounds issues, along with phosphate deficiencies and aluminum toxicity. The best agricultural use of Podzols is for grazing, although well-drained loamy types can be very productive for crops if lime and fertilizer are used.
The E horizon (or Ae in Canadian soil classification system), which is usually thick, is low in Fe and Al oxides and humus. It is formed under moist, cool and acidic conditions, especially where the parent material, such as granite or sandstone, is rich in quartz. It is found under a layer of organic material in the process of decomposition, which is usually thick. In the middle, there is often a thin horizon of . The bleached soil horizon, which always has a higher value than the horizons above and below it, goes over into a red or red-brown horizon (so-called Podzolic B).
Official source
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