The Influence of Ambient Temperature on Soil Temperature in Concrete Containers with Lime Trees

Abstract

Soil temperature is an important factor fot growth and??varies according to ambient conditions. In this paper, we study the soil temperature changes in concrete containers 80 cm in diameter and 40 cm in height due to ambient temperature. Temperature measurments were carried out at 0, 10, 20, 30 and??40 cm soil depth in containers with lime trees aged 1, 2 and 5??years. Both ambient temperature and soil temperature data were collected from a lime orchard in??Chonburi, Thailand. The results indicated that thetemperature changes of soil at each depth were different and fluctuated widely in shallow soil in all containers. The average soil temperature of the 1-year-old lime tree was higher than that for 2 and 5-year-old trees at daytime but was nearly constant, and a similar trend in temperature variation was found during the nighttime in all depth of three trees. Straight-Line Regression Analysis with the Coefficient of determination, R2 showed that the ambient temperature and soil temperature had a strong correlation to surface soil at daytime (R2 =??0.76-0.78) and at nighttime in all depth (R2 = 0.87-0.96). This experiment provides primary data for determining soil temperature from ambient temperature for lime tree planting or the cultivation of other crop in concrete containers