摘要 : The current work represents a trial to provide knowledge about the main soil factors or environmental conditions that affect soil deposition mode, profile development and its suitability for specific crops at El Bahariya Oases, Eg... 展开 The current work represents a trial to provide knowledge about the main soil factors or environmental conditions that affect soil deposition mode, profile development and its suitability for specific crops at El Bahariya Oases, Egypt. These items are considered of the most urgent criteria that help in planning the proper agricultural utilization of such desert soils. It is essential to conduct the preliminary studies for evaluating soil potentiality and favourable management practices for its sustainable cultivation on both the short and long-terms. Based on the visual interpretation of Landsat, the main physiographic units in the studied area could be categorized into five units, <i>i.e.</i>, piedmont, partly vegetated alluvial plain, wind blown sand, cultivated alluvial plain and playa. The results of the field work indicated that the soil depth was 150 cm or more, except for some localities, where the soil depths were restricted by water table or bed-rock (50, 80 and 120 cm). The studied soils have different textural grades, <i>i.e.</i>, sand, loamy sand, sandy loam, sandy clay loam, clay loam and clay. The soil surface was covered with patches of reddish brown colour, which are mainly ascribed to the continuous irrigation with natural under groundwater contaminated with iron oxides. The calculated indices of soil profile uniformity show an evidence of partial homogeneity of the soil materials at some sites developed on piedmont, wind blown sand and playa units, while the other studied soils gave an evidence of partial heterogeneity of the soil materials. Also, the values of such indices reveal that the studied soil sediments were transported and deposited through different environmental media, <i>i.e.</i>, the action of wind (well sorted), mixed actions of wind-water (normal sorted) and the action of water (poorly and very poorly sorted). The variations in mineralogical composition of sand separates (light and heavy minerals) are mostly attributed to the nature of parent materials from which the soils were derived in conjunction with sedimentation regime. In addition, these noticeable variations could be emphasized by either the multi-origin or multi-depositional regime of the representative soil sites. Also, the relatively high weathering values can be taken as an indication of the immature soil condition. By matching the parametric approach of land indices and the requirements of some specific corps, the obtained data of soil suitability for some selected crops (21 crops), which are presented for the studied soils developed on the identified physiographic units as land suitability guide tables, reveal that the current suitability classes were not suitable (N), except some scattered areas developed on the different physiographic units which are suitable for palm. On the other hand, the potential suitability classes differed according to the satisfaction condition between different properties of soils developed on the studied physiographic units and plant requirements. 收起