COMPARISON OF THE BASIC PHYSICAL-PROPERTIES OF CHESTNUT SOILS

Using Chestnut soils of various textures in the lower Transvolga region, it is shown that the generally accepted indexes of the physical state of soils may be inadequate for investigating soil compaction. In this case, changes can be identified from the permeability index (as determined by the tube method), which reflects the structure of the pore space and reacts to rearrangement of the pore space. In order to assess the latter, several relationships are suggested which permit one to estimate the extent of textural and structural porosity as well as the degree of fissuring at various levels of moisture content, and the moisture content corresponding to the critical air content.