Help me understand my soil jar test

[HeidiLikesFlowers]

Almost 48hrs passed, two more photos photos of my dry soil for reference

 

[Chuck]

IF, if I am seeing this correctly your soil is about 95% silt, 5% sand and 5% clay. I see zero organic matter.

 

[DirtMechanic]

That white line is silt, the clay is finer and in suspension above it. I did my test on the lawn soil and the clay never settled . I bet your soil drains water fairly quickly. Dig a hole and test that percolation too. Rub the mud between fingers and you should find that lowest material has a granular feel to it from larger sand like mineral particles.

 

[Chuck]

That white line is silt, the clay is finer and in suspension above it. I did my test on the lawn soil and the clay never settled . I bet your soil drains water fairly quickly. Dig a hole and test that percolation too. Rub the mud between fingers and you should find that lowest material has a granular feel to it from larger sand like mineral particles.

So what is the thin bottom layer?

 

[Chuck]

Check out cambisols soil. It is what is in N Italy. I had never heard of such a thing.

 

[DirtMechanic]

So what is the thin bottom layer?

Hard to say from a simple picture but iron sands and heavier materials would find their way down in a slurry hurry.

 

[YumYum]

That white line is silt, the clay is finer and in suspension above it. I did my test on the lawn soil and the clay never settled . I bet your soil drains water fairly quickly. Dig a hole and test that percolation too. Rub the mud between fingers and you should find that lowest material has a granular feel to it from larger sand like mineral particles.

It has taken about a week for my red clay to settle but it eventually settled. Definately don't wont the jar to move any. On a side note I can do it in a different spot in the yard and it will settle in a day or two.

 

[DirtMechanic]

It has taken about a week for my red clay to settle but it eventually settled. Definately don't wont the jar to move any. On a side note I can do it in a different spot in the yard and it will settle in a day or two.

This has to be overkill, but you made me think about how there are different types of clay. I wondered about particle size differences in the clays and how that impacts suspension or emulsion in water. Then it occured to me how much lime we have dissolved in our tap water. I wonder if that lime somehow helps the clay stay up instead of settle. I will have to try some distilled water an see at some point. I recognize that across the country different things are added to water to impact and center its neutrality.

 

[Meadowlark]

...I wonder if that lime somehow helps the clay stay up instead of settle. I will have to try some distilled water an see at some point. I recognize that across the country different things are added to water to impact and center its neutrality.

On the contrary, I've used ag. lime for decades to settle out negatively charged clay particles. It works great but does take some time.

tag based on what is being viewed. We filter the output of wp_title() a bit - see agriflex_filter_wp_title() in functions.php. --> <title> Clearing Muddy Ponds - Austin

austin.agrilife.org

 

[YumYum]

This has to be overkill, but you made me think about how there are different types of clay. I wondered about particle size differences in the clays and how that impacts suspension or emulsion in water. Then it occured to me how much lime we have dissolved in our tap water. I wonder if that lime somehow helps the clay stay up instead of settle. I will have to try some distilled water an see at some point. I recognize that across the country different things are added to water to impact and center its neutrality.

I did fail to mention that I use distilled water in my jar tests so you might be correct that distilled water should be used. We have pretty hard water here sitting on limestone rock. I'm not sure if I read my tests correctly or not but I see what looks to be 4 layers of material in that pic for some reason. I've read you can use a little dish soap to help separate the particles a little better but you can't use the liquid to do a pH test if you do that. That requires a certain mixture of dirt and distilled water.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I did fail to mention that I use distilled water in my jar tests so you might be correct that distilled water should be used. We have pretty hard water here sitting on limestone rock. I'm not sure if I read my tests correctly or not but I see what looks to be 4 layers of material in that pic for some reason. I've read you can use a little dish soap to help separate the particles a little better but you can't use the liquid to do a pH test if you do that. That requires a certain mixture of dirt and distilled water.

You can also drain the material, dry it thoroughly and run it through a self clean cycle in a modern oven. The dry weight prior and the dry weight post heat will be % the OM carbon content burnt off.