Soil Science

BSc (Hons) Horticulture - Commercial -> AGRI1179

Assessment title: Soil investigation

Written by Andre Filipe Ribeiro Faria

Hadlow ID: FAR18053154
Contents

Front page – 1st page

Contents – 2nd page

Introduction – 3th page

Geology and soil of Kent and Low Weald, Physical test –4th page

Physical test –5th page

Water infiltration and drainage, Field capacity and pore space –6th page

Field capacity and pore space –7th page

Chemical test –8th page

Chemical test –9th page

Chemical test –10th page

Conclusion, References –11th page

Introduction
My aim in this assignment is to analyse a soil sample taken from Kent county and
present some geologic history, prove the correlation between the soil texture and the
different characteristics of the soil, present some features of the soil sample, as well
as, relating it to the geology of the area and how is influenced, relate the levels of
organic matter to the possible advantages and finally, draw some conclusions.
My soil investigation was conducted by a sample from a field around Grove Farm
from Hadlow College Residential in Kent county, thus, is very important to analyse the
geology of that local in order to collect all available data.

Fig.1 a, b Geology of Kent (a) and where the soil sample was taken marked as a black
and white dot in the right figure (b) (ARCH, 2012)(Google Maps, 2019)
 The soil sample I took was situated in the Natural Character Area (NCA) of Low Weald
according to the Kent Habitat Survey from 2012.

Fig.2 Low Weald in Kent

(ARCH, 2012)

Geology and soil of Kent and Low Weald

In south-east of England, more precisely in the Kent county, the rock strata exposed
in nature are sedimentary (ibid.).
Low Weald is also known as Weald Clay due to the fact that lies a band of soft clay
right to the north of Hastings Beds which has been eroded to form a flat, broad valley
that is considered to be 4 to 8 miles wide (ibid.). This area covers some known cities
and villages such as Marden, Yalding, Tonbridge and Hadlow. It is generally flat and
featureless, with frequent ponds especially in the central area. Due to the fact that
much of the clay is 30 meters thick, and due to the impermeable nature of heavy clay
soils in that area, drainage is compromised and therefore poor. This being said, the
nature of the soil of this area will definitely influence my chosen sample because it was
taken from that area and so, will carry similar characteristics such as being
predominantly clay and having poor drainage conditions.

Physical test
In order to analyse the soil physically, my first experiment was to use the Manual Soil-
texture Test used worldwide as a professional testing and when following the
procedures, I noticed that the soil forms a ribbon between 2.5 and 5 cm long and also
makes a slight noise with a slightly gritty feeling which indicates me that is Clay loam
(Mazzey, 2019). However, to precisely discover the nature of the soil texture I resorted
to another method that was taking a sample of soil and dropping in a measuring
cylinder with water, and leaving it for a couple of weeks in order to get the different
size of particles of the soil to deposit. Knowing that the size of the sand is between
0.05 mm and 2 mm, the silt between 0.002 mm and 0.05 mm and the clay with no
more than 0.002 mm I’m able to measure thanks to gravity that make the particles
distribute and deposit evenly and by sizes that particles deposited in the bottom were
clay, in the middle were silt and sand in the top. This said, measuring the distance of
each of those particles relatively with the total distance of the soil allows me to get
precisely the quantity of sand, silt and clay of the soil.
Total distance: 98 mm
Sand: 28 mm
Silt: 30 mm
Clay: 40 mm

Sand: (28÷98) x 100= 28.6%

Silt: (30÷98) x 100= 30.6%
Clay: (40÷98) x 100= 40.8% Graph 1 Sand, Silt and Clay percentages
(own’s author)

Fig.3 Preparing the second method (own’s

author)

Fig.4 Two weeks after

preparation (own’s author)

This last method is more accurate than the first one and in order to discover the
results, textural triangle consultation is needed, and after consultation I discovered
that my sample of soil is considered clay rather than clay loam as mentioned on my
first attempt.
 Fig.5 Textural triangle (Groenendyk, D.; Ferré,
T.; Thorp, K.; Rice, A., 2015)

Water infiltration and drainage

Using 6.5 cm of soil and 10 ml of water, 4.5 ml of water drained in less than 1 second
and there were no water drips afterwards however, it retained 5.5 ml of water which
indicates that the sample retains water very well and also drains quickly.
According to the experiment, this soil holds 31.9 ml/cm3.
My conclusion is that water might have passed through a macropore in the soil that
made it drain quickly as a result of human errors such as soil not well distributed and
crumbled when used in the trial, because this is not a feature of clay soils, but rather of
sandy soils. Regarding the retention, excellent retention that definitely corresponds to
one of the major characteristics of clay.

Field capacity (FC) and pore space (PS)

Using my soil sample, I calculated the field capacity by dividing the amount of water
in the soil (that is known by subtracting the weight of the wet soil for the dry soil) with
the weight of the dry soil getting an estimate of 0.201 ml/g.
Pot + wet soil= 201.47 g
Pot + dry soil= 170.38 g
201.47 - 170.38= 31.09 ml of retained water
Dry soil= 154.64 g
FC= 31.9 ÷ 154.64= 0.201 ml/g
 Due to the fact that clay retains more water and because the only dependent variable
is the retained water, this suggests that the field capacity is entirely dependent on the
capacity of the soil to retain water which demonstrates that clay soils have more field
capacity than silty and sandy soils or any other types of soil such as any type of loamy
soils, and therefore once again, reinforces that my sample is a heavy clay soil just like
the soils from Low Weald.
Retained water= 31.09 ml
Drained water= 225 ml
Dry soil= 154.64 g
Total PS= (31.09 + 225) ÷ 154.64= 1.66 ml/g

Porosity, the fraction of soil volume not occupied by solids, is relatively easy to
conceptualize and measure (Nimmo, J., 2013).
This result seems a bit contradictory because, in fact, shows that does have a good
total pore space when in theory it should not be so high due to the fact that clay
particles are the smallest particles which I would expect to have low quantity of pores
when together, despite they have a lower pore space in comparison to silt or sand, this
suggests that my sample has a very good total pore space that is without a doubt due
to the amount of retain water and drained water being higher than the mass of dry soil
which seeing through this point of view, seems acceptable when looking to the nature
of clay. There are relationships between properties: permeability, for example,
correlates with porosity (Schön, 2011).

Fig.6 Macro shot in my soil sample (own’s author)

Chemical test
First thing it was done was to find out how much percentage of organic matter there
is in the soil sample and to do so, one sample was taken to the oven and another one
to the furnace using in order to dry crucibles as a support.

Fig.7 Soil samples after heated in the oven and furnace (own’s author)

Samples: A (Oven) B (Furnace)

Before Crucible 56.86 g 51.64 g
Crucible + soil 74.64 g 63.48 g
After Crucible + soil 67.22 g 57.99 g
Mass lost 7.42 g 5.49 g
The furnace burns organic matter in contrast to oven and knowing this I can calculate
the percentage of water lost in sample A and the percentage of water lost and organic
matter lost in sample B and doing the difference between these two gives me the
percentage of organic matter lost.
Sample A: 17.78 g of soil
Sample B: 11.86 g of soil
A: (7.42 ÷ 17.78) x 100= 41.7 %
B: (5.49 ÷ 11.86) x 100= 46.3 %

46.3 – 41.7 = 4.6% of organic matter

 Usually silty or clay soils have more percentage of organic matter than sandy soils, 2%
of organic matter in sandy soils is considered very good and hard to reach, whereas 2%
of organic matter in clay soils demonstrates a great depleted situation. In addition to
this, needless to say that soils higher in silt and clay need more organic matter to
produce sufficient water-stable aggregates to protect soil from erosion and
compaction (SARE, no date). Organic matter consists of varying proportions of small
plant residue (fresh), small living soil organisms, decomposing (active) organic matter,
and stable organic matter (humus) in varying stages.

Fig.8 Major components of soil organic matter

(Soil Food Web; USDA; NRCS, 2014)

The average percentage of organic matter depends on the nature of the soil, however
due to the fact that my sample has 41% clay, the amount of organic matter should be
around 4-5% (Mazzey, 2019), which in this case, is not very different from my sample
indicating nearly 5%. That shows a good content of organic matter which have great
use for agriculture purposes. High percentage of organic matter also increases field
capacity, water retention, availability of most nutrients, buffers the effects of high
acidity, helps to minimize compaction and surface crusting, increases water infiltration,
provides food for micro-organisms that facilitate the availability of nutrients, holds soil
aggregates together, decomposes pesticides, and acts as a carbon sink (USDA; NRCS,
2014).

Fig. 9 Giant worm decomposing the organic matter (own’s author)

 The next step was to discover the quantity of macro-nutrients, as well as, the pH of
the soil. After doing the experiment, I discover that the pH of my soil is 7 which is good
even though 6.5 is the optimal pH for the plant to be able to absorb all the required
nutrients. Regarding the macro-nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus indicated medium-
high, whereas potassium indicated as high. The organic matter has definitely a major
influence in these results.

Fig. 10 a,b,c,d pH and macro-nutrients test (own’s author)

Conclusion
The sample of soil collected demonstrated to have the right characteristics of Low
Weald soil which means it had an influence from its origins, some feature are clay
nature, a good water retention, good percentage of organic matter and therefore,
good pH and high quantities of nutrients, however, is not impermeable which makes
me believe there were some mistakes in some procedures or were not done properly
enough to give the right result. Nevertheless, this is considered to be a great local to
plant and/or agriculture purposes.

References
ARCH. (2012) The Kent Habitat Survey 2012 Final report. Available at:
http://www.archnature.eu/the-kent-habitat-survey-2012-final-report.html (Accessed: 04
March 2019)

Mazzey, C. (2019) Soil. Paper sheet given in the classroom that ables you to follow and revise
the power point.

Nimmo, J. (2013) Porosity and Pore Size Distribution. Available at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/pore-space
(Accessed: 6 March 2019)
USDA; NRCS. (2014) Soil Health- Guides for Educators. Available at:
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs142p2_053140.pdf
(Accessed: 6 March 2019)
SARE. (no date) How Much Organic Matter Is Enough? Available at:
https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-
Edition/Text-Version/Amount-of-Organic-Matter-in-Soils/How-Much-Organic-Matter-
Is-Enough (Accessed: 7 March 2019)
Schön, J. (2011) Physical Properties of Rocks. Available at:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/pore-space
(Accessed: 6 March 2019)