Story: Soils

Ultic soil

Ultic soil

This yellow Ultic soil is in the Marlborough Sounds. Ultic soils have yellow or yellow-brown subsoil. They are derived from quartz-rich sediments which have weathered to clay or sandy clays. They are of low fertility and their clayey subsoils have poor drainage. The Ultic soils in the Bay of Islands were probably the first in New Zealand to be cultivated by steel implements, undertaken in 1771 by staff of the French explorer Marion du Fresne.

Using this item

Massey University
Reference: Les Molloy, Soils in the New Zealand landscape: the living mantle. Lincoln: New Zealand Society of Soil Science, 1988, plate 8.8
Photograph by Quentin Christie

© New Zealand Society of Soil Science

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How to cite this page:

Allan Hewitt, 'Soils - Ancient soils', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/12312/ultic-soil (accessed 20 April 2024)

Story by Allan Hewitt, published 24 Sep 2007