Soil clay loam that begins at 43% water by weight to a field capacity of 22% is six days, whereas a sand loam that is flooded to its maximum of 22% water will take two days to reach field capacity of 11% water. The available water for the clay loam might be 11% whereas for the sand loam it might be only 8% by weight. The above are average values for the soil textures as the percentages of sand, silt and clay vary. Water moves through soil due to the force of gravity, osmosis and capillarity. At zero to one-third bar
Soil specific surface area and its unbalanced negative electric charges, clay is the most active mineral component of soil. It is a colloidal and most often a crystalline material. In soils, clay is a soil textural class and is defined in a physical sense as any mineral particle less than in effective diameter. Many soil minerals, such as gypsum, carbonates, or quartz, are small enough to be classified as clay based on their physical size, but chemically they do not afford the same utility as do mineralogically-defined clay minerals. Chemically, clay minerals are a range of phyllosilicate minerals with certain reactive