Features of Desertified Soil in South of El-Hosainiya Plain, El- Sharqia Governorate, Egypt

THE CURRENT investigating was carried out to recognize the problems in south of El-Hosainiya Plain soils through studying some soil characteristics. To fulfill this purpose five soil profiles were taken to present five villages, i.e., El- Rowad, Khaled Ibn El-Waleed,El-Azhaar, El-Salah and Tarek IbnZiad. The results indicated that,soil reaction in the soils was alkaline. Soil salinity varied frommoderately to highly saline. Organic matter decreased with increasing depth. Cation exchange capacity was related to clay and organic matter contents. CaCO3 content ranged from 1.05 – 5.70% in the successivelayers of the studied soil profiles. On the other hand, the dominated texture was clay in all soil profiles. Concerning available macro nutrients; the highest values of available NP and K were; 53.2, 7.5 and 600 mg.kg-1, respectively in profile 2 in the layer (0-25),while the lowest values were; 16.8, 1.0, for N and P in profile 5 in the layer(100-150) and 160 mg Kg-1 for K in profile 4 in the layer (30-60). Regarding to available micronutrients; the highest values of available Fe, Zn, Mn and Cu were; 8.4, 2.3, 5.3and 2 mg.kg-1, in profiles 5, 4, 5 and 4 in layers (0-20), (30-60), (0-20) and (0-30), respectively. While the lowest value of Fe was 2.0 mg.kg-1 in profile 1 in the layer (100-150).But, the lowest values of Zn, Mn, and Cu were; 0.9, 1.8 and 0.67 mg.kg-1 in profile; 3 in layer (100-150), respectively. The obtained results revealed that the high risk of chemical vulnerability is due to soil salinization, alkalization and decreasing in organic matter and some nutrients.