Water holding capacity of soils cultivated with coffee and other edaphic properties Capacidad de almacenamiento de agua en suelos cultivados en café y otras propiedades edáficas relacionadas.

Water holding capacity (WHC) is one of the determining properties of crop production. Cenicafé conducted research in order to study WHC in coffee plots and the related soil properties [texture, organic matter (OM), bulk density (BD), real density (RD), moisture retention, and total porosity (TP)], through soil profile and among cartographic units. Soils cultivated with coffee in the Catarina, Chinchiná, Doscientos, Guamal and Quindío Units were used at four depths (between 0 and 5, 5 and 10, 10 and 20, and 20 and 30 cm). The properties that showed means difference in profile depth were WHC and moisture retention at field capacity (FC) at the Chinchiná Unit, moisture retention at permanent wilting point (PWP) at the Quindío and Catarina Units, slimes at the Doscientos Unit, TP at the Catarina Unit, BD at the Quindío Unit, RD at the Catarina Unit, and OM at all units. The regression models that explained the properties were mostly simple exponential, linear for OM, and for the units studied, texture and BD explain FC and PWP, which determine WHC. Another finding was that the units with the highest TP do not always have the highest WHC, even though TP is directly related to CC and PWP.