| Abstract: | Soil clods were collected from the A horizons of six soils (3 Aqualfs and 3 Uderts) in the vicinity of Bayreuth in northern Bavaria. The soils had a range of clay contents and came from arable, meadow (pasture) and forest areas. The soils ranged in workability from easily workable to difficult to work. The clods, still moist as collected, were fractured into two parts by tensile stress and one part of each clod was embedded in polyester resin. The embedded clod parts were then sectioned to show profiles of the fracture surfaces. The profiles were digitized by a television scanner. Statistical measures of the roughness of the fracture surfaces were computed. Fracture surface roughness was strongly influenced by land use and soil clay content. Soil workability was related to fracture surface roughness and hence also to land use and soil clay content. Ease of soil working was mainly associated with the presence of soil structural features larger than 10 mm. |
