physical characteristics of soils include all the aspects that you can see and touch such as:
texture
colour
depth
structure
porosity (the space between the particles)
stone content.
Good soil structure contributes to soil and plant health allowing water and air movement into and through the soil profile. Soil stores water for plant growth and supports machine and animal traffic.
While some soils are naturally better structured than others, some physical characteristics of soils can be changed with good management.
It is important to monitor the physical characteristics of soil to understand soil condition.
It is also important to ensure that management practices are not contributing to the decline of the soil. An example of this is excessive traffic causing compaction and reducing the amount of macropores, or spaces between the aggregates, therefore reducing the amount of air and water into and through the soil.
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