Research on the effects of soil erosion on soil productivity has attracted increasing attention.Purple soil is one of the main soil types in China and plays an important role in the national economy.However,the relationship between erosion and the productivity of purple soils has not been well studied.The purpose of this research was to determine if soil depth,which is dependent on the rate of erosion,has an influence on crop yield and growth.Plot and pot experiments at different soil depths were performed.Results indicate that soils from different parental materials had different growth features and crop yields due to the differential fertility of the derived soils.The yield reduction rate increases exponentially with the depth of eroded soil(level of erosion).The yield reduction rate per unit eroded soil horizon(10 cm) is approximately 10.5% for maize and wheat.
Disintegration of rock is one of the primary processes of soil formation and geomorphology and is affected considerably by water and heat.This study focused on the disintegration characteristics under laboratory conditions of typical purple mudstone from the Tuodian group of Jurassic red beds(J3t) in Tuodian Town,Shuangbai county,Yunnan Province of southern China.The fresh mudstone was subjected to alternating applications of water,heat and hydrothermal interaction during five treatments:wetting-drying(WD),saturation(ST),refrigeration-heating(RH),a combination of wetting-drying and refrigeration-heating(WDRH),and a combination of saturation and refrigeration-heating(STRH).Each treatment was run in twenty-four cycles.The results showed that there are three types of disintegration:collapsing disintegration,exfoliation disintegration and imperceptible disintegration.The cumulative disintegration rate(percentage of cumulative disintegrated mass to the initiative sample mass passed through a 2 mm sieve) produced a 'S'-shape function when related to treatment cycle time and closely fit a logistic model(R2 > 0.99).The rank order of the cumulative disintegration rate resulting from the five treatments was as the following:WDRH > STRH > ST > WD > RH.Because of alternating periods of moisture and dryness,WD caused the most disintegration,while RH alone resulted in imperceptible disintegration.Additionally,there was a negative correlation between the disintegration rate of each treatment cycle(percentage of disintegrated mass to the treated sample mass) and treatment cycle number.There was a positive correlation between this rate and temperature change under moist conditions,indicating that a change in temperature greatly accelerates the disintegration of parent rock when water was supplied.
