Soils of Co. Meath
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Soil Survey Bulletin No. 37 ISBN 0-905442-67-9 SOILS OF CO. MEATH by T. F. Finch, M. J. Gardiner, A. Comey and T. Radford National Soil Survey of Ireland An Foras Taluntais (THE AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE) Published by An Foras Taluntais, 19 Sandymount Avenue, Dublin 4V March 1983 MAJOR SOIL SURVEY PUBLICATIONS 1963-1981 Soils of West Cork, (part of Resource Survey) 1963-M. J. Conry, P. Ryan and J. Lee Soils of Co. Wexford, 1964*-M. J. Gardiner and P. Ryan Soils of Co. Limerick, 1966-T. F. Finch, P. Ryan Soils of Co. Carlow, 1967-M. J. Conry and P. Ryan Soils of West Donegal, (part of Resource Survey) 1969-M. Walsh, M. Ryan and S. van der Schaaf General Soil Map of Ireland, 1969* Soils of Co. Kildare, 1970-M. J. Conry, R. F. Hammond and T. O'Shea Soils of Co. Clare, 1971-T. F. Finch, E. Culleton and S. Diamond The Potential of Irish Land for Livestock Production 1972*—J. Lee and S. Diamond Soils of Co. Leitrim, (part of Resource Survey) 1973-M. Walsh Soils of Co. Westmeath, 1977-T. F. Finch and M. J. Gardiner Soil Association of Ireland and Their Land Use Potential, 1980-M. J. Gardiner and T. Radford The Peatlands of Ireland, 2nd edition, 1981 -R. F. Hammond •Out of print. THE DROVER To Meath of the pastures From the wet hills by the sea Through Leitrim and Longford Go my cattle and me Padraic Colum Another thing I learned from my roadside chats was that the Meath men will not stock their land while the spring is raining. The soil is soft and the heavy cattle would cut it up too much. When a man pays from three pounds to five pounds per acre for land, he has to take many things into consideration. William Bulfin Rambles in Erin, 1907 PREFACE This publication, Soil Survey Bulletin No. 37, presents the findings of the soil survey of County Meath. It is one of a series of county soil surveys being carried out by the National Soil Survey of An Foras Taluntais (The Agricultural Institute) for the purpose of pro viding basic information which can be used in optimum land-use planning. The field mapping was carried out at a scale of 1 : 10,560(6in. = 1 mile;9.5 cm = 1 km) but due to scale limitation the detail mapped on the field sheets is not shown on the published soil map. Copies of the field maps may be inspected in the Soil Survey Office at Johnstown Castle, Wexford. Messrs. T. F. Finch, T. Radford and A. Comey were mainly responsible for the systematic field work; M. J. Gardiner also participated in some of the initial field work. The systematic survey commenced in 1972. Mr. S. Diamond gave assistance and advice on soil correlation and Mr. R. F. Hammond on peat classification. Mr. M. Bulfin contributed the section on forestry suitability and was also responsible for photographs. Dr. G. A. Fleming and Mr. P. Parle wrote the chapter on trace elements and Dr. J. Lee, the chapter on grazing capacity. Dr. P. Ryan, Director, An Foras Taluntais gave the survey his enthusastic support. The bulletin was compiled by Messrs T. Finch, T. Radford, A. Comey and Dr. M. J. Gardiner and was edited by Dr. E. Cuileton. Typesetting and layout were carried out by John Dowling and the bulletin was printed by the Publications Department of An Foras Taluntais. Miss 0. Shudall of the Cartographic Section of the National Soil Survey at Johnstown Castle, Wexford was mainly responsible for the preparation of the coloured soil map and grazing capacity map. The various figures and plates were also prepared by the staff of this section. The analytical data were provided mainly by the laboratory staff of the Soil Survey Department (with assistance from the Soil Fertility and Chemistry Department) and the Plant Nutrition and Biochemistry Department. Assistance also came from a number of outside sources. In compiling the information on soil suitability, personnel in the local Agricultural Advisory Services gave valuable assistance. CUmatic data were abstracted from the Meteorological Service records. The colour printing of the maps was done by the Ordnance Survey which was also the source of base maps for the field mapping; the printed maps are based on the Ordnance Survey by permission of the Government. Grateful acknowledgement is made to all those contributors mentioned here and to others who helped in various ways. M. J. Gardiner, National Soil Survey of Ireland, An Foras Taluntais, December, 1982. CONTENTS Chapter Page 1 General Description of the Area 1 Location and extent 1 Topography 2 River systems 4 Climate 5 2 Geology of the County 9 Solid geology 9 Glacial geology 11 3 Soil Survey Method 13 The soil profile 13 Soil mapping 17 4 The Soils and Their Use-Range 19 Regosol Group 19 Lithosol Group 23 Brown Earth Group 23 Rendzina Group 29 Grey Brown Podzolic Group 29 Brown Podzolic Group 36 Podzol Group 39 Gley Group 40 Alluvial Soils 45 Mineral Soil Complexes 47 Peat Soils 57 Peat Complexes 60 5 Soil Suitability 61 Suitability for grassland and cultivation 62 Suitability for forestry 67 6 Quantitative Grazing Capacity of Soils 71 7 Trace Elements 79 APPENDIX I Definition of Terms Used in Profile Descriptions and Analyses 87 II Profile Descriptions and Analyses 95 III Classification of County Meath Soils According to American System: Soil Taxonomy 143 LIST OF FIGURES 1 Geographical location and principal towns and villages 1 2 General topographic divisions 2 3 Catchment areas of principal rivers 5 4 Rainfall distribution 6 5 Solid geology 10 6 Glacial geology 11 7 Diagrammatic representation of hypothetical soil profiles 14 8 Relationship of different peat soils in Co. Meath within overall classification scheme 58 9 Molybdeniferous areas in Co. Meath 85 10 Chart showing the percentages of clay, silt and sand in texture classes 88 LIST OF TABLES 1 Average yearly and monthly rainfall, 1951 —1968 7 2 Estimates of mean daily maximum, minimum and air temperature 1931-1960 8 3 Classification of soils into Great Soil Groups and the relative extent of each group 20 4 Soils grouped according to parent materials 21 5 Soil grouped according to natural drainage status 22 6 Soil complexes and their extent 48 7 Soil suitability for grassland and cultivation 64 8 Soil suitability for forestry 68 9 Grazing livestock units in Co. Meath, 1958-1977 71 10 Composition of grazing livestock categories in Meath and Republic of Ireland 72 11 Grazing capacity of soils 74 12 Extent and definition of grazing capacity classes 76 13 Net grazing capacity 77 14 Livestock numbers (1977) and possible stocking estimates 77 15 Normal ranges of some trace elements in Irish soils 79 16 Trace elements—extractable contents 80 17 Trace elements—total contents 82 LIST OF MAPS Soils of County Meath Grazing capacity of soil series CHAPTER 1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE AREA Location and Extent County Meath is situated in the east midlands of Ireland between 53° 21' and 53° 55* north latitude and 6° 12' and 7° 20' west longtitude. It stretches from a 12 kilometer- long east coast strip between the Boyne and Delvin rivers as far inland as Lough Sheelin. Apart from the coastal strip it is bounded on the east by county Dublin, on the south by counties Kildare and Offaly, on the west by county Westmeath and on the north by counties Cavan, Monaghan and Louth (Fig. 1). Fig. 1: Geographical location and principal towns and villages. 1 The county occupies an area of 579,425 acres; 234,490 hectares (land and water); total land area* is 575,593 acres; 232,939 hectares. The principal towns are Navan, Kells, Trim, Laytown, Bettystown, Ashbourne, Dunboyne, Duleek, Oldcastle and Athboy. Topography County Meath may be divided into the following topographic regions (Fig. 2): Fig. 2: General topographic divisions. Total land area is the figure used to calculate percentage occurrence of different soils. 2 1. Silurian shale hills and surrounding lowlands 2. Drumlin region 3. Limestone lowland with Namurian and Silurian shale hills 4. Limestone lowland with Carboniferous shale ("Calp") influence 5. Limestone lowland with dead ice features. 1. Silurian shale hills and surrounding lowlands: This region, which has a rather uniform pattern, consists of three different areas in Meath: (i) Slieve na Calliagh ridge; (ii) the east-west ridges north of the Boyne and (iii) the east-west ridges around Bellewstown. All these areas contain Brown Earths and Brown Podzolics soils which, under good manage ment, can be very productive. The slopes are negotiable by farm machinery, being no more than 10°, and only some small areas are too steep for easy cultivation. The hills and ridges seldom exceed 300 metres in height and for the most part, reach only 240 metres, while the surrounding lowlands are at an elevation of about 100 metres. In the valley bottoms there are areas of lesser slope where drainage is slower and poorly drained soils exist. Plate 1: This topographic sequence of Lower Palaeozoic shale soils shows the Acid Brown Earths of the Kells series in the foreground, the Brown Podzolics of the Rathkenny series on the slopes and the Podzols of the Slievebeg series on the hill crests. 3 2. Drumlin region: This region lies north of the line from Moynalty to Castletown, Lobinstown and northeast to the county boundary. While this landscape has slopes similar to Region 1, elevations range from 61 metres in the limestone corridor of the River Dee, to around 244 metres at Teevurcher. The soils range from poorly drained around Teevurcher and to the east of Kingscourt, to well drained in the Dee valley.