Question

Physical properties of soil: the "usda qualitative test for soil texture" is a quantitative test which provides accurate percentages for the amount of sand, silt and clay in my soil sample.

Answer 1

The soil test to determine its physical composition in terms of amount of clay, silt and sand, is known as the test of the bottle, which consists of placing 5 cm of soil inside a transparent bottle, then fill the remaining space of the bottle with water, shake the entire contents for a few minutes until the contents are mostly uniform, then let the mixture rest for 1 hour, where we observe that the larger particles are sedimented in the bottom of the bottle, which will be identified distributed as follows: the bottom layer will be the layer of sand, the center of the layer of silt, and the top will be the layer of clay, if we still observe the cloudy water is because even the clay it will not be sedimented in the bottom of the bottle, finally we will measure the produndity of each layer and by means of a rule of three, using the total of the measurement of the three capable together, and separately the medici on of each layer, we will obtain the percentage of each physical matter deposited in the bottom of the bottle. If we observe certain remains floating on the surface of the water, it would correspond to the remains of organic material that was in the sample of earth used, this will not be taken into account for the measurement.