The cone index is a weak predictor of soil disturbance on forest soils of the Western Carpathians

ABSTRACTSoil compaction is one of the primary causes of soil degradation. Predicting the soil disturbance by assessing the cone index of the soil is becoming popular, due to the simplicity of measuring it with a cone penetrometer. This paper is focused on assessing, whether the cone index is a suitable predictor of soil compaction on cambisols, luvisols, and rendzic leptosols. Overall, we measured penetration resistance, bulk density, moisture content, and rut depth on 250 locations in forests of the Western Carpatians. The mean penetration resistance of the undisturbed soil was 4.33 and 4.41 MPa in the ruts of the skid trails; the mean cone index of the undisturbed soil was 5.46 MPa; the mean bulk density of undisturbed soil was 0.95 g cm−3; the mean moisture content of the undisturbed soil was 24%; the mean rut depth was 6 cm, and the maximal rut depth was 38 cm. Spearman’s correlation analysis showed that the relationship between the mean rut depth and the cone index was statistically insignificant, an...