Laidig soil and landscape

Soil profile: Laidig soil in an area of Laidig channery loam, 3 to 15 percent slopes, rubbly. A fragipan (a dense subsurface horizon that restricts water flow and root penetration) begins at a depth of about 122 centimeters. (Soil Survey of New River Gorge National River, West Virginia by Wendy Noll and James Bell, Natural Resources Conservation Service)

 

Landscape: Laidig soils are on middle and lower slopes. Slopes are mostly 8 to 55 percent but range from 0 to 55 percent. Laidig soils formed in loamy colluvium, 6 or more feet thick, derived largely from acid gray sandstone with small amounts of siltstone and shale of the adjacent uplands. Most areas are forested. Red, white, and chestnut oaks are the most common trees with some sugar maple, beech, and hemlock. A relatively small acreage of these soils is cleared and used for cropland or pasture.

 

Map Unit Setting

Major land resource area (MLRA): 127—Eastern Allegheny Plateau and Mountains

Landscape: Mountains

Elevation: 473 to 962 meters

Mean annual precipitation: 1,034 to 1,289 millimeters

Mean annual air temperature: 5 to 17 degrees C

Frost-free period: 141 to 190 days

Map Unit Composition

Laidig and similar soils: 70 percent

Dissimilar minor components: 30 percent

 

Soil Classification: Fine-loamy, siliceous, semiactive, mesic Typic Fragiudults

 

Setting

Landform: Mountain slopes

Landform position (two-dimensional): Footslope

Landform position (three-dimensional): Mountain base

Down-slope shape: Linear and concave

Across-slope shape: Concave and linear

Aspect (representative): Southwest

Aspect range: All aspects

Slope range: 3 to 15 percent

Parent material: Rubbly colluvium derived from interbedded sedimentary rock

 

Properties and Qualities

Depth to restrictive feature: 76 to 127 centimeters to fragipan

Shrink-swell potential: Low (about 1.2 LEP)

Salinity maximum based on representative value: Nonsaline

Sodicity maximum: Not sodic

Calcium carbonate equivalent percent: No carbonates

Hydrologic Properties

Slowest capacity to transmit water (Ksat ): Moderately low

Natural drainage class: Well drained

Flooding frequency: None

Ponding frequency: None

Seasonal water table (depth, kind): About 76 to 117 centimeters; perched (see

table 24)

Available water capacity (entire profile): Very high (about 23.4 centimeters)

 

Interpretive Groups

Land capability subclass (nonirrigated areas): 7s

West Virginia grassland suitability group (WVGSG): Very Rocky, Acid Soils (RA3)

Dominant vegetation map class(es):

Oak - Hickory Forest

Disturbed Area

Eastern Hemlock - Sweet Birch - Tuliptree / Great Laurel Forest

Deciduous Tree / Great Laurel Forest

Hydric soil status: No

Hydrologic soil group: C

 

Representative Profile

Oi—0 to 2 centimeters; stony slightly decomposed plant material

A—2 to 9 centimeters; gravelly highly organic loam

A/B—9 to 19 centimeters; gravelly loam

Bt1—19 to 80 centimeters; gravelly loam

Bt2—80 to 122 centimeters; gravelly loam

Btx—122 to 200 centimeters; gravelly loam

 

For a detailed soil description, visit:

soilseries.sc.egov.usda.gov/OSD_Docs/L/LAIDIG.html

 

For acreage and geographic distribution, visit:

casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/see/#laidig

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