Effects of soil properties, climatic factors, and landscape features of prime farmland soils on vegetative growth using producivity indices on reclaimed coal surface mined soils

Abstract

Selected soil chemical and physical properties, climatic factors, and landscape features can be used as indicators of potential vegetative growth for commodity crops on reclaimed soil after coal surface mining. The logic for evaluating vegetative growth is similar to the "Storie Index for Soil Rating." The Storie Index, manipulating selected soil properties, is used to calculate soil productivity indices. Some elements have more impact on plant growth than others. Typically, selected soil properties, e.g., proportion of sand, silt, and clay, pH, bulk density, root limiting earthy soil layer, salinity, sodicity, root limiting non-earthy layers, landscape position, amount of precipitation, organic matter, rock fragments, etc. will determine the root zone available water capacity (RZAWC) of a soil. In normal precipitation years, the RZAWC of prime farmland soils determines the vegetative growth. RZAWC becomes a surrogate for many other soil properties and features. Knowing the RZAWC relationship allows soil scientists to make relatively accurate vegetative growth predictions. The significance of these properties determines the commodity crop vegetative growth using productivity indices of reclaimed soil compared to the pre-mined soil. The question being addressed in this paper, are the relationships of soil properties, climate (both soil and climatic atmospheric), and landscape features understood well enough to guarantee that soils reclaimed after surface mining for coal will be as productive as the pre-mined soil?