Assessment of Soil Limiting Factors Effect on Land Productivity at Wadi El-Faregh Area, West of Delta, Egypt

Agricultural expansion in Egypt is the central tool to maximize agrarian production. Generally, agricultural development has multiple mechanisms and sequent procedures in which land evaluation has the superiority. The major concept of land evaluation is to assess limiting qualities of land capability for maximum land utilization through land use planning. This study aimed at evaluating the influence of soil limiting characteristics on its productivity in a newly reclaimed area at Wadi El-Faregh area. Studied area which extends over 3000 feddans was surveyed by digging forty five soil profiles representing current farms and dominant problems. The soil could be classified as Typic Torripsamments, Lithic Torripsamments and Typic Quartzipsamment with differentiating seven soil mapping units differ in profile depth, soil salinity, lime content and soil texture. Field investigations showed that 66.3% of the studied area has deep profile, while shallow depth covers only 5.7% of the area. Sandy loam soil texture is dominant over 61.1% of the area, and the rest of area has either sand or sandy clay loam texture. Most of the area considered non to moderately saline, while only 10.7% is salt affected. The studied area is non calcareous to moderately calcareous over 83.6%, while 16.4% of the area has high lime content. Gravel content is negligible except for some limited sites over 3.5% of the area having moderate surfacial gravels. Well water samples have relevant quality for agricultural purposes except for well no. 6 and 7 which were affected slightly with salts.  Limiting properties of land capability may be concluded as dominant sand content, shallow profile depth at some sites, salt and/or lime some affected sites and poor fertility status. The studied area is evaluated as order "Suitable" and classified into two capability classes; "Fair" representing 83.6% as productivity index ranged between 41.0 – 57.3%, and "Poor" extending over 16.4% of the area with productivity index varied from 29.5 – 35.9%. Best recommended winter crops are wheat, barely, alfalfa and faba bean, while in summer they are sorghum, sunflower and peanut. Seven different fruit trees are suitable in the studied area with the following sequence: date palm, olive, grape, apple, citrus, pummel and guava.