Pattern of soil physical properties in intensive plum and apple orchards on medium and course textured soils

•Two different soil-textured soils show similar dynamics under intensive orchards.•The pattern of soil physical properties is non-homogeneous in fruit trees plots.•Soil heterogeneity is attributted to the technological traffic in fruit growing.•Soil bulk density is higher in inter-row than in-row even in young orchards.•A correlation was found between bulk density and other soil physical properties.

The purpose of this paper is to test uniformity of some soil physical properties in loamy-textured and course-textured soils within intensive orchards and to find out the specific pattern, in order to use it in general orchard management. Undisturbed soil samples were taken from both in-row (IR) and inter-row (ITR) positions within a transect section between two adjacent tree rows. Within this transect there were nine vertical sampling sections spaced 0.5 m apart. Soil bulk density, macro-porosity, saturated hydraulic conductivity and penetration resistance were determined. The pattern of soil physical properties in loamy-sandy and sandy-loamy textured soils is different in intensive orchards from that of arable soils with homogeneous tillage, showing thus the dynamics of soil state. The soil physical properties studied were found to be less favorable to plants in ITR than in IR due to the technological traffic in such environments, after only six years since the orchards were established. The former deep plowing and deep loosening seem to still have favorable consequences for the 0.5 m topsoil physical state in orchards. This shows the beneficial effects of these works that should be recommended whenever such plantations are established on such compacted soils. Cutting tree roots can also be done at a distance of 0.5–0.7 m away from tree rows if an increased control on the irrigation regime and wetted soil volume is required for drip irrigation.