Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1) water flow potential, 2) water holding capacity, 3) fertility potential, 4) suitability for many urban uses like bearing capacity
Texture
The Percent of sand, silt, clay in a soil sample Critical for understanding soil behavior and management Soil texture is not subject to change in the field but can be changed in potting mixes.
m boulders Coarse fragments > 2 mm Sand < 2 mm to 0.05 mm Silt < 0.05 mm to 0.002 mm Clay < 0.002 m
> 2 mm Gravels, cobbles, boulders Not considered part of fine earth fraction (soil texture refers only to the fine earth fraction or sand, silt & clay) Boulders left in valley of Big Horn Mts.(Wy) by a glacier.
Coarse Fragment
< 2 mm to > 0.05 mm Visible without microscope Rounded or angular in shape Sand grains usually quartz if sand looks white or many minerals if sand looks brown, Some sands in soil will be brown, yellow, or red because of Fe and/or Al oxide coatings.
Sand
Sand
Feels gritty Considered noncohesive does not stick together in a mass unless it is very wet.
Sand
Low specific surface area Sand has less nutrients for plants than smaller particles Voids between sand particles promote free drainage and entry of air Holds little water and prone to drought
Silt
< 0.05 mm to > 0.002 mm Not visible without microscope Quartz often dominant mineral in silt since other minerals have weathered away.
Silt
Does not feel gritty Floury feel smooth like silly putty Wet silt does not exhibit stickiness or plasticity or malleability
Silt
Smaller size allows rapid weathering of non quartz minerals Smaller particles retains more water for plants and have slower drainage than sand. Easily washed away by flowing water highly erosive. Holds more plant nutrients than sand.
Silt is responsible for silting over gravel beds in rivers that are needed by fish for spawning.
www.pedrocreek.org/ fishcommittee.html
Silt if often left as a vertical face since in this condition the landscape is less prone to water erosion than if the area was graded to a slope.
Source of Silt
Clay
< 0.002 mm Flat plates or tiny flakes Small clay particles are colloids
If
Clay
Wet clay is very sticky and is plastic or it can be molded readily into a shape or rod. Easily formed into long ribbons Shrink swell none to considerable depending on the kind of clay.
Clay
very slow
Soil strength- shrink/swell affects buildings, roads and walls. Chemical adsorption is large
Dyad
What do you think would be an ideal proportion of sand, silt and clay for a soil that would be good for plant growth?
Sand: ______%
Silt: _______% Clay: ______%
Textural Triangle
Sandy Soils
Coarse texture
Sands Loamy
sands
Loamy Soils
Medium texture
Very
Clayey Soils
Fine texture
Silty Clay Sandy
clay clay
Soil texture can be changed only by mixing with another soil with a different textural class in small quantities
Adding sand to a clay soil creates a cement like substance Find soil with native texture properties you want dont try to make the texture you want. Adding peat or compost to a mineral soil is not considered changing the texture since it only adds organic matter not sand, silt or clay
Over long periods (1000s yrs) pedologic processes alter soil horizon textures. As soils get older sand weathers to silt and silt weathers to clay.therefore old soils have more clay.
Clay also translocates down in the soil profile so subsoils generally have more clay than topsoils. Thus Argillic horizons form and are zones of clay accumulation
Argillic =
The graph of the % clay from the surface to the parent material will show if a soil has a clay bulge or an increase in clay. Textural Profiles aid in looking for the clay bulge.
Argillic =
Soil Texture
Soil texture can also be determined by feeling the soil. This procedure takes practice but eventually a person can become very proficient and will be able to estimate the % clay within 3% of the actual value.
Wet soil in hand Make ribbon Length of ribbon indicates clay content Grit or lack of grit indicates sand or silt Smoothness indicates silt
The
velocity of settling (V) is proportional to the square of particle diameters (d) Bigger particles settle more quickly Density of the water (due to suspended silt and clay) holds up hydrometer
Hydrometer method
Carefully stir soil by gently lifting stirring rod. Hydrometer used to measure amount of silt and clay in suspension after 40 seconds Or reading No. 1 = silt and clay in suspension and if we subtract it from total soil this equals amount of sand. Or % sand = total soil reading onetotal soil x100
Hydrometer method
Slowly inserting hydrometer
2 hour measurement determines suspended clay or what is left after silt has settled out. %clay = reading twototal soil x 100 % silt determined by subtraction (reading #1) (reading #2)=silt %Silt= 100 [(% sand) + (% clay)]