RHEOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR AGRICULTURAL HYDROGELS

A soil in region of Czech Republic and Austria is continuously losing its natural property to retain water in its structure. Most of the water which comes from rains just goes through the soil into the groundwater and agricultural lands suffer by the lack of humidity. One of the reasons of this strange soil behaviour is caused by decreasing amount of organic soil matter. Solution of this problem can be found in application of superabsorbent polymers enriched by addition of active substance based on humic acids. This system of controlled released preparation is able to retain more water in the ground together with sustainable supply of humic acids which are important part of organic soil matter. Rheological properties of samples superabsorbent polymers enriched by humic acids were determined to prove if they are able to resist certain mechanical mechanical stress which they will have to hold out after agricultural application.