Post 8: My thesis

My thesis is the development of a simulation model of the oxygen transport in soil with 3 to 5 % of Organic Matter content, this wasn’t my original subject, but after a few discussions with my tutor we decided this topic as the most suited thesis to develop.
In O’Higgins, agriculture is one of the most important economics activities, and the fruit production is very sensitivity about environmental stress like unbalanced water content in soil, this unbalanced could causes water deficit in plant or stomatal closure because oxygen deficit to root respiration.
Oxygen is necessary to plant and microorganism respiration, without oxygen the soil is unable to maintain his basics functions. In the same way, begin anaerobics processes and the soil accumulates carbon dioxide, this gas inhibits the roots growth.
To improve the irrigation management is necessary to know the behavior of oxygen and water in soil, bad irrigation management generally cause oxygen deficit and the problems that I mention above.
Therefore the main reason to my thesis is to develop a tool to predict the oxygen concentration in soil, however there isn’t the same level of knowledge of this subject than in other countries, even when the soil that were used has less than 2% of organic matter content, making compulsory to our country have studies in this field of research.
I hope that my thesis became a useful tool to the agronomist, which allows to improving the irrigation management in fruits orchards independent of the soil type.
I forgot to mention that the soil type is highly related with the air capacity of a soil and also with the soil capacity to content water or oxygen, plus uncorrected agricultural management, the oxygen content will be diminish to dangerous level to plants growth.
This study could be just the beginning of other thesis that might find more suitable equations to oxygen diffusion or apply the same methodology to other conditions.