Scribd
Upload
188 views5 pages

Exercise 1 Soil Texture Determination

The document discusses determining soil texture through sedimentation and ribbon tests. It explains that soil texture depends on the proportions of sand, silt, and clay. The sedimentation test involves shaking a soil sample in water for 24 hours to allow the separates to settle by size. Observing the depth of each separate layer enables calculating the percentage and identifying the texture on a soil triangle chart. The objectives are to measure separate proportions, demonstrate texture determination skills, and describe texture's effects on soil properties.

Uploaded by

Maylynn Tolo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
188 views5 pages

Exercise 1 Soil Texture Determination

The document discusses determining soil texture through sedimentation and ribbon tests. It explains that soil texture depends on the proportions of sand, silt, and clay. The sedimentation test involves shaking a soil sample in water for 24 hours to allow the separates to settle by size. Observing the depth of each separate layer enables calculating the percentage and identifying the texture on a soil triangle chart. The objectives are to measure separate proportions, demonstrate texture determination skills, and describe texture's effects on soil properties.

Uploaded by

Maylynn Tolo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 5

SOIL TEXTURE DETERMINATION

Exercise #1

I. Introduction

Texture is relative proportion of the three soil separates: the sand, silt and clay.
In a soil triangle, there are twelve textural classes with each textural class having unique
characteristics. In sandy soil for example, water easily lost to percolation due to large
pore spaces and therefore needs frequent watering for plants to survive; whereas clay
soils, water seeps to slowly because of very fine pore spaces and flooding may result,
and thus affect plant growth. Hence, it has always been given particular attention.

Soil texture can be determined in many ways. Few of these are the pipette
method, the hydrometer method or sedimentation test, and the ribbon or feel method.
In this exercise, the latter two methods will be done.

Referring back to the three soil separates, the table below gives fine descriptions
with corresponding particle size.

Soil Separate Finer Description Particle Diameter (mm)


Very coarse sand 1.0–2.0
Coarse sand 0.5–1.0
Sand Medium sand 0.25–0.5
Fine sand 0.1–0.25
Very fine sand 0.02–0.1
Silt Silt 0.002–0.02
Clay Clay <0.002
Colloid <0.0005

The Soil Triangle

The soil triangle is used to determine the textural class once the relative
percentages of sand, silt and clay have been estimated after sedimentation test. The
base of the triangle represents the percent sand, the left side represents percent clay
while the opposite side is the percent silt. One simply follows the three axes at which
they intersect, which provides the name for the texture class for this particular soil.
II. Objectives
At the end of this exercise, students should be able to:
1. Measure the proportion of soil separates in a given soil sample,
2. demonstrate skill in determining texture of a given soil sample by
sedimentation test and by ribbon (or feel) test, and
3. describe the effect of texture on soil surface area, permeability, water
retention and movement.

III. Materials

Empty bottles
soil
measuring cups

IV. Sedimentation Test


1. Place about ½ cup of soil in the graduated cylinder. Add 3 ½ cups of water,
2. Cap the graduated cylinder and shake for five minutes. Leave the cylinder on the
desk and let it settle for 24 hours,
3. when all of the soil particles have settled after 24 hours, measure and record the
total depth including the depth of each layer of the soil separates. The sand soil
separate (or particle) should be at the bottom, followed by the silt in the middle and
the clay at the top. If soil separates have not settled yet, do this procedure the next
day or so when all the soil have settled,
4. After recording the total depth, and the depth of the three separates, calculate the
percentage of each soil separate using the following formula:

sand depth
% sand= × 100
total depth

silt depth
% silt = ×100
total depth
claydepth
% clay= ×100
total depth
NAME:_________________________ Course/Year/Section: __________

Group No.: _____________ Date: ____________ Rating: ______

___________________________________

Title

Exercise # 1

OUTPUT 1: Schematic diagram of the procedure (with picture)


OUTPUT 2: Tabulation of observations on total depth and depth of soil separates, and demonstration of
calculations to convert the observations into percent.

OUTPUT 3: Drawing of soil triangle highlighting the intersecting lines and the texture of the soil sample

You might also like