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70
ANNEXES
Analysis of the agricultural situation in Azraq Basin
German-Jordanian Programme “Management of Water Resources”
1.2 – Deep fine mixed calcareous family of Typic Haplocambids*.
Occurs in flat to very gently sloping, Qa wadis and some terraces in the
aridic moisture regime, precipitation 50-100 cm,the soil is formed on
basaltic alluvium and average soil depth is 96 cm, these soils found in
Al-Awshaq which represent the old farm in Azraq.
When dry the surface is hard to very hard, vesicular and often shows
polygon formation with common 0.5-1cm wide cracks. Surface gravel
cover is variable from nil to 60%, and a gravelly phase is recognized as
a soil type.
The topsoils is reddish yellow to strong brown (7.5YR7/6-5/6)strong to
moderate coarse to medium sub angular blocky structured, texture is
Silty Clay or heavy silty Silty Clay Loam (44.8% Clay, 49.2% Silt, and 6.0%
Sand),the topsoil is platy and vesicular breaking to sub angular blocky.
Reaction to dilute HCL is strong.
Subsoil is strong brown to yellow red (7.5YR5/6-5YR4/6)weak to moderate,
coarse to medium sub angular blocky Silty Clay Loam to Silty Loam,
(31.2% Clay, 58.2% Silt, and 10.6% Sand) A few CaCO3 concentration
can occurs throughout and few gypsum crystals occur in lower subsoil.
Gravels normally absent or very low, the deep subsoil can be massive
compacted reaction to dilute HCL is strong.
These soils is very saline and sodic with Ece 43 and 35 mS/cm in
top and sub-soils respectively and ESPs of 15 and 50% respectively,
Reaction is slightly alkaline with pH 7.4,If reclaimed fertility would
be medium to high with CEC of 20-30 m/100g. inherent fertility is low
with Organic Matter about 0.1%, total-N100 respectively indicate a
strong k deficiency, CaCO3 contents of about 17% are moderately high
and somewhat hazardous and gypsum content of about 3% relatively
low but could reduce CEC and AWC, Moisture reserves, if the soil
was wetted, would adequate with AWA in the range 110-120 mm/m,
low infiltration rates.