Alfisol, one of the 12 soil orders in the U.S. Soil Taxonomy. Alfisols are arable soils with water content adequate for at least three consecutive months of the growing season. Prior to cultivation they are covered with natural broad-leaved deciduous forest vegetation, sometimes interspersed with needle-leaved evergreen forest or with grass. Occupying just under 10 percent of the nonpolar continental land area on Earth, they are found primarily in cool, moist regions of the Northern Hemisphere (the north-central United States and north-central Europe extending into Russia) and in subhumid or Mediterranean climatic regions of both hemispheres (western Africa south of the Sahara, northeastern Brazil, and southern Australia). The principal agricultural crops grown on Alfisols are corn (maize), wheat, and wine grapes.
Alfisols typically exhibit well-developed, contrasting soil horizons (layers) depleted in calcium carbonate but enriched in aluminum- and iron-bearing minerals. Below the surface horizon lies a region with significant accumulation of translocated (migrated) layer silicate clay. This region, called the argillic horizon, is characterized by a relatively high content of available calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium ions.
Alfisols are lower in humus content than Mollisols (a similar soil order) and do not have the calcium carbonate accumulation of that soil type. They are less extensively leached of metal ions and develop in cooler climates than the Ultisols, a clay-rich soil order of warmer regions.