Sample Calculation:
- Soil Water = 160.35 – 138.2 = 22.15
- Mass of original soil = 160.35 – 13.30 = 147.05
- % Water in the soil = 22.15 / 147.05 * 100 = 15%
Soil Texture
Masses of soil sediments (+/- 0.01g)
Sample Calculation:
- Mass of total soil = 11.25 + 12.90 + 19.01 = 43.16
Percent of each kind of sand, silt and clay and soil texture
Sample Calculation:
- % Clay = 11.25 / 43.16 * 100 = 26
% Silt = 12.90 / 43.16 * 100 = 30
% Sand = 19.01 / 43.16 * 100 = 44
By using textural triangle I could see that both soils are Clay Loam
% of organic matter/humus content = Loss in mass after heating / mass of dry soil *100
Masses of organic matter and soil, Percentage of organic content (+/- 0.01g)
Sample Calculation:
- Mass of organic matter = 23.66 – 20.16 = 3.50
Mass of dry soil = 23.66 – 13.30 = 10.30
% of organic matter in the soil = 3.50 / 10.30 * 100 = 34%
Soil pH test:
Some bacteria and nutrients can be seen from these soils so some plants can grow in this soil .
Nitrogen content:
Plants need nitrogen for development. Medium pink means that there is some nitrogen in the soil so plants can grow in this soil.
Analysis
The point of this lab was to figure out the correct soil texture and find the characteristic. At the beginning of the experiment, I thought that Soil A is Clay Loam and Soil B is Clay by “Soil Texture by feel”. Unfortunately, Soil B was not Clay, was Clay Loam. The reason why there was a mistake in this experiment was that since the soil texture data was collected by touching them there was a human error. However, we were able to find the soil texture by calculating the percentage of each clay, silt, and sand soils. We used a textural triangle to find the soil texture so we could get the better data. When calculating organic matter and water of the Clay Loam soil, we could find some descriptions about this soil. As you can see the data Soil, 34% of the Soil A (Clay Loam) is water. This is quite high, means that this soil contains some water. Therefore, some plants could live in this Clay Loam soil. Also, we learned that plants and organic matters can live in Clay Loam because when you look at the pH and Nitrogen data you see that the pH was neutral and there were enough nitrogen for plants to grow. In conclusion, you can see if the soils are good for plants by looking at pH, Nitrogen, % of organic matter and water. In our case, we could find out that the Clay Loam is a soil that is good for plants and grasses.