Soil great group

Cambortid

Of the Ortid suborder; it has only one cambic horizon: incipient development, no accumulations.

Cambortid is a name from the 1975 taxonomy, which many INTA soil survey maps were made with. The current edition no longer has this group: today it would be classified as Haplocambid.

What the name says

Soil Taxonomy names are built from parts, and each part says something about the soil. From general to specific:

Taxonomic orderAridisolSoil arid climate: water is lacking most of the year and the profile accumulates what the rain cannot wash away (carbonates, gypsum, salts) or clay from more humid times.
SuborderOrtidAridisol without clay horizon.
Great groupCambortidWithin the Ortid suborder, it has only one cambic horizon: incipient development, no accumulations.

What it means for farming

Without irrigation there is no agriculture: they are soils of native woodland, extensive grazing or, with water, irrigated oases (Mendoza, San Juan, the valleys of the NOA).

Most common surface texture
Loamy sand
Most common drainage
Well drained
Typical effective depth
80 cm

Where it is found

According to the 1:500.000 national map, it covers about 6.436.540 ha, spread over 68 districts.

Loading map…

National map units that list it. The scale is 1:500.000: good for seeing the region, not a single property.

ProvinceArea
Santa Cruz1.840.147 ha
Río Negro1.505.680 ha
Chubut798.803 ha
Catamarca593.945 ha
La Rioja556.270 ha
Córdoba440.799 ha
Jujuy295.317 ha
Salta281.685 ha
Santiago del Estero66.429 ha
Buenos Aires38.795 ha

Districts where it is most common

It also appears on the detailed maps of: Santiago del Estero.

How productive it is

Where it is the main soil of the map unit, the productivity index has a median of 35 (low); half of the units fall between 26 and 51.

Land capability

VII

class VII: 100%

Taken from the maps that include this data. A map unit with several soils has a single index, and it is only attributed to the dominant soil.

Subgroups on the maps

The definitions are a plain-language summary of the USDA Keys to Soil Taxonomy. The formal definition includes thickness, color and percentage thresholds that are left out here.

Sources