26 Yellow and brown sodic and strongly sodic mottled textue contrast soils on Palaeozoic sediments

These soils occur in the Western Uplands south of Ballarat and on the north-eastern edge of the CMA where rainfall is quite high, but where drier the soils are sodic.

These soils have shallow surface organic loamy sand to sandy loam soils sometimes underlain by conspicuously bleached subsurface (A2) horizons, or a clear change at about 20–30cm into a pale sodic slightly mottled (red) silty medium clay subsoil, which grades into weathered thinly bedded sediments between 60 cm to 100 cm on upper slopes and at greater than 100 cm on lower slopes. Lower slopes and colluvial slopes have darker subsoils (pale brown) which are still mottled and more likely to be texture contrast than those soils on higher topographic positions on (weathered) rock.

Notable characteristics include: high silt content, erosion prone, acidic and hence low nutrient availability, generally shallow organic surface soil, texture contrast on most slopes but deeper on lower slopes. The subsoils are often sodic, increasing their susceptibility to erosion.

Soil Sites

Site Code	Soil-landform unit	Component	ASC	FK	1:100 000 mapsheet
BD11	20	Mid slope	Melanic, Subnatric, Red Sodosol	Dr3.63	T7722 - Bacchus Marsh
BD13	50	Lower slope	Mesotrophic, Subnatric, Yellow Sodosol	Dy3.51	T7622 - Ballarat
MM204	23	Crest	Ferric, Mottled-Subnatric, Brown Sodosol	Dy3.41	T7622 - Ballarat
MM219	8	Mid slope	Ferric, Bleached-mesonatric, Brown Sodosol	Dy3.42	T7622 - Ballarat

Page top