Amazing Video! I just tried this but it did not go well... it seems like it's all silt. I can't see any sand or clay, do you think my dirt could be all that?
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Thanks for the reply! Sadly, I left it for more than that to see if it needed more time, and it didn't work. I also tried to reshake it, but still nothing. I just think that my soil samples just had a lot of mud making it hard to see the others. Thank you for the reply!
I've watched (and tried) so many videos that involved careful application of water then rolling and kneading and whatever of the mixture and I was none the wiser ... this is so much simpler and gives me numbers I can work with ... thanks
Do you think you should dig a little deeper to get a sample. For soil tests in the US we go 6-8 inches down. You were scraping soil off the top. The soil profile will be different as you go deeper were your plant roots are. Just some thoughts.
Hi Dave, yep, I think you're right... Way back, when I tested this soil, I was genuinely surprised how bad the soil condition was, considering how much organic matter I'd mixed through it over the years beforehand. So, there's probably a lot of wisdom in your comment that I'd not considered when I made this video.
Well, I am so happy after watching your video. Quality Content, excellent demonstration, excellent explanation. Very insightful and personally found it very helpful as I just picked gardening into my new hobby. Hope you continue to bring up such quality contents buddy, lots of love and support to you.
Great explanation. Easy to follow. Found it really helpful for my course on sustainability. Would you please consider doing a video on wicking beds and growing vegetables in them? Thanks!
Just brilliant. I am just about to do tests on different composts for bug infestations before I choose the best, and your soil analysis method is an extra bonus ! If one were to fill each jar halfway with different composts or imported soils, then leave the sealed jar in a warm place the little buggets, (a technical term), should have hatched and be flying or crawling around inside the jar. By combination and cooperation, we Master the Earth. .
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Your test is so simple that even though it is 06:12 here in the UK, I sprang/sprung/leapt to my feet in dynamic action and there are now three 50% filled different compost types bars sitting on my kitchen sink window, awaiting the glory of the new day, and tempting the crawlies to emerge. I may extend my bug test to two weeks in a second run, but 7 Days should be enough for most pests, I think. (To be checked !) After then I will add the distilled/filtered water and will also do PH and PPM tests. Any ideas on measuring Toxicity ? I have just done three Compost Microwaving 1 gallon samples today in a 10 Minute thrash other thrips blast Sterilisation experiment. (The three jars done tonight is the 'as it comes' varieties.) A little bit of reading suggests too high, (or long ?), a heat might induce toxicity, as well as killing off 'GOOD' Microbes. (To be investigated.) Note to self; Must get myself a Sciency type Lab Coat and seven pens. . I DO love Science. .
Bloody excellent. Clear concise and easy to follow. I watched several others teaching the same, too fast and over complicated. Subscribing, hope you cover more plant and gardening content. Silly question, does the soil have to be dry to perform these tests.
Technically yes, but finding the right sieves with a varying degree of sizes suitable for separating the three main components might be difficult... Certainly more than visually inspecting in a settles jar of material.
Silt size is 4 - 62 microns. So yes, you should be able to use nested sieves - everything caught by the 62 micron sieve would be sand, everything caught in the 4 micron sieve would be silt and the rest would be clay. Finding a 4 micron sieve may be hard, but should be possible.
Wouldn't you need to let that sit longer? considering the water isn't clear, doesn't that mean the Fines/Loam haven't settled which means you could have a higher percentage of fines
Typically, there should be about 3 main layers to any soil type. Maybe a 4th if you consider debris as a 4th. I'm from Australia. I really want to visit India one day... You're such lovely people!!!
What you called "sand" is it really sand? because you just mix soil with normal water. It will be different if you add hot water or with other solution that can break the organic bended with soil particle.
@@suhardisuhardi8388 umm... Possibly... You mean that it (the "sand") might actually be smaller particles that are simply bonded together tightly that appear like sand? If this is the case, for a more scientific approach to soil analysis, your insight is 100% valid however, for someone simply looking to improve their soil quality at home, I'm not sure it would matter a great deal, as this type of material will still act like sand, and therefore, should be treated as such... I think so because no watering or rain will be able to break down these specific materials as well... At least, I don't think so. It's a good insight you've presented though... I really appreciate your point of view here, because it shows us all that there is more to think about and learn, so, thank you!!!
G'Day MC. Here's what one of my viewers said about the times (it's very interesting) "Singye Dorji said... I've read that sand settles in 60 seconds, silt in 30 minutes and clay 24 or more hours. So if you mark off the horizons in 60 seconds, 30 minutes and then a day later you wouldn't have to try and guess where the sand layer ends and silt begins. Been researching how to test soil for silt clay and sand content for making carb." I let mine settle for about 4 hours or so... I hope this helps. Thanks for watching. Jim
Round up is absolute trash. It's made by a company called Monsanto. They are an evil company who want to destroy all natural crops so the world is left with their genetically modified products. What happened to the World Trade Center on 9-11 should also happen to Monsanto with every staff member inside the building.
i read somewhere you can measure overall depth, shake, take immediate measurement for sand, wait 5 minutes take measure of silt, then subtract those from the overall depth for clay. but, my sample settled to its overall height in like half an hour. 33% clay 66%sand and like no silt.
Hi Jim, Thank you for sharing your expertise. If we have only jars with larger circumference, how would that alter your % reading? and how long did you let your three samples sit to settle? Thanks again.
Larger circumference won't change anything; use the same method 😁 I let mine settle for a number of hours, but if you want the most accurate results, let it sit for more than 24 hours.
The silt and sand layers were a bit hard to distinguish in my opinion. At the beginning I didn't tell the difference. If you had left them for a little more time, would that contrast have been clearer?
+cradleofalex Probably, although, looking at them in real life, rather than on a screen, it was easier to see. I also had the advantage of being able to view the photo in high resolution and blow it up in size to see the changes in soil composition as a reference when I was creating the lines on the screen for the video in my editing software. If you could test better quality soil, you'd be able to see the difference a lot better too, as there would be more of each layer to see. I might do a follow up video to show this. Perhaps I might try to get a few different types of did to show more of the differences. You've given me a good idea! Thanks for the feedback.
Urban Self Sufficiency I've read that sand settles in 60 seconds, silt in 30 minutes and clay 24 or more hours. So if you mark off the horizons in 60 seconds, 30 minutes and then a day later you wouldn't have to try and guess where the sand layer ends and silt begins. Been researching how test soil for silt clay and sand content for making carb. Hope this info is useful.
Singye Dorji I just took a soil science course and those are very similar to what we used, 88 seconds for sand, 4 hours for silt and then I think 15-18 hours for clay.
Great video, it was a help in doing my own testing in my garden... I do have a question. How did you amend you soil to bring up the percentage of Silt & Clay. Thank for posting you video.
Hey Sal, thanks for watching. I basically used a crap load of crap... Cow manure. And mushroom compost and some new soil from the garden centre as well. But mainly, I just kept adding composted manure until it was better.
Open Google word document. Click "Tools", then click "Voice Typing". Play the video and allow the audio to be picked up by your microphone and Google will transcribe into text. Done. 😁
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency I managed engineering soils labs for like 6 years. Their objectives are different than say a horticultural/scientists soils lab, wherein we were only interested in physical characteristics such as particle size distribution (like what your video is about), density, compressive strength, and organic content. Another thing you can do is take a baked sample, document its natural and baked weights, then cook it much higher at 800°F/425°C (which is not so easy to do at home): everything cooked off at the higher temperature is organic matter. Then from there you can compute the percentage of organic content in the sample.
Hey Ryan, thanks for watching. I basically used a crap load of crap... Cow manure. And mushroom compost and some new soil from the garden centre as well. But mainly, I just kept adding composted manure until it was better.
All these videos using marker on glass. Just put a strip of tape on it, then you won't have to remove the marker afterwards. (Mark on the tape or use the tape as teh marker)
Why would you only scrape top soil area? You need to go down more, get various areas using same soil complexity, and put in bucket. Mix it well, sift it until fine in texture. C then do this test. If not, your test is misleading.
I am not sure, you are using a correct expression for silt. You told "loom or silt" layer. Loam is the mixture of 20% clay, 40% silt and 40% sand. Normally a silt layer contains very fine quartz (silicon dioxide) and granite powder (and feldspar). The grain size is between sand and clay, a small amount of silt has the same size as clay. See this picture: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loam#/media/File:SoilTexture_USDA.png The optimal mixture, you talked about in the video is exactly the loam.
Add sand to clay, a wasted day. Add clay to sand, money in the hand. Why? A hand full of tiny clay particles can coat every grain of sand in a bucket of sand. The reverse is like putting gravel in a bucket of water. Everything is still wet. Or to continue the analogy, a few grains of sand cannot alter the nature of clay.
I’m here from my school the teacher showed us this
That's awesome! Was it more entertaining than reading about it? Did you learn something from it?
Jim
Urban Self Sufficiency yes i did me and my class all did it in groups I’ll look on Friday what our % was in my group
@@Siolnnn Oh cool. Will you let me know what the results are?
Urban Self Sufficiency yes next Friday
@@Siolnnn Cool cool. Also, where in the world is your school?
Amazing Video! I just tried this but it did not go well... it seems like it's all silt. I can't see any sand or clay, do you think my dirt could be all that?
I'm unsure. Perhaps leave it to settle for 24 hours and see if things change.
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Thanks for the reply! Sadly, I left it for more than that to see if it needed more time, and it didn't work. I also tried to reshake it, but still nothing. I just think that my soil samples just had a lot of mud making it hard to see the others. Thank you for the reply!
I've watched (and tried) so many videos that involved careful application of water then rolling and kneading and whatever of the mixture and I was none the wiser ... this is so much simpler and gives me numbers I can work with ... thanks
Thank you for the amazing feedback!
Do you think you should dig a little deeper to get a sample. For soil tests in the US we go 6-8 inches down. You were scraping soil off the top. The soil profile will be different as you go deeper were your plant roots are. Just some thoughts.
Hi Dave, yep, I think you're right... Way back, when I tested this soil, I was genuinely surprised how bad the soil condition was, considering how much organic matter I'd mixed through it over the years beforehand. So, there's probably a lot of wisdom in your comment that I'd not considered when I made this video.
Very good video
@@alexisorganes4033 thank you.
Well, I am so happy after watching your video. Quality Content, excellent demonstration, excellent explanation. Very insightful and personally found it very helpful as I just picked gardening into my new hobby. Hope you continue to bring up such quality contents buddy, lots of love and support to you.
Best vid I've seen thus far regarding soil testing. Brilliant!
Thanks lee lee! That's so nice of you to say. I'm glad you liked it.
Great explanation. Easy to follow. Found it really helpful for my course on sustainability. Would you please consider doing a video on wicking beds and growing vegetables in them? Thanks!
I'll look into it, sure.
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency legend!
Can you do a video (DIY) on how to check Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium content in the soil? 🤔
Just brilliant.
I am just about to do tests on different composts for bug infestations before I choose the best, and your soil analysis method is an extra bonus !
If one were to fill each jar halfway with different composts or imported soils, then leave the sealed jar in a warm place the little buggets, (a technical term), should have hatched and be flying or crawling around inside the jar.
By combination and cooperation, we Master the Earth.
.
Awesome. Will you let me know how it goes?
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency
Your test is so simple that even though it is 06:12 here in the UK, I sprang/sprung/leapt to my feet in dynamic action and there are now three 50% filled different compost types bars sitting on my kitchen sink window, awaiting the glory of the new day, and tempting the crawlies to emerge.
I may extend my bug test to two weeks in a second run, but 7 Days should be enough for most pests, I think.
(To be checked !)
After then I will add the distilled/filtered water and will also do PH and PPM tests.
Any ideas on measuring Toxicity ?
I have just done three Compost Microwaving 1 gallon samples today in a 10 Minute thrash other thrips blast Sterilisation experiment.
(The three jars done tonight is the 'as it comes' varieties.)
A little bit of reading suggests too high, (or long ?), a heat might induce toxicity, as well as killing off 'GOOD' Microbes.
(To be investigated.)
Note to self;
Must get myself a Sciency type Lab Coat and seven pens.
.
I DO love Science.
.
Brilliant 🎉
Nancy watching from Zambia
@@nancykunda8210 Hi Nancy from Zambia!
Much love from Australia
really need this for my project
this an old vidio
Concise and clear 👌
Is there another way of testing the soil
No
WONDERFUL! Thx!
Really clear content! Very helpful for my horticulture studies! Thanks 😊🌿
Thank you.
R u Horticulture teacher
I did this twice with different soils but the soil isn't separating, I'm using a clear plastic bottle though. How to solve this problem?
This has helped me with an assignment🙌 thank you so much for sharing this content🙌🙌🙌
This makes me so happy! Thanks for sharing... I needed that today :)
What are the specific chemical needed to test soil nutrients?
Very informative thanks ❤
Very good video for figuring out soil composition! QUESTION 🙋♀️ do you know how to test for nitrogen , potassium & phosphorus content?
No, but if I do, I will make a video on it... might be a great part II
Bloody excellent. Clear concise and easy to follow. I watched several others teaching the same, too fast and over complicated. Subscribing, hope you cover more plant and gardening content. Silly question, does the soil have to be dry to perform these tests.
Firstly, thank you!
As for the soil dryness... No, can be wet.
Is it possible to do this same experiment but with a nest of sieves. I just don't know how to identify clay, sand and humus on sieves.
Technically yes, but finding the right sieves with a varying degree of sizes suitable for separating the three main components might be difficult... Certainly more than visually inspecting in a settles jar of material.
Urban Self Sufficiency that’s what I thought, thank you so much!
Silt size is 4 - 62 microns. So yes, you should be able to use nested sieves - everything caught by the 62 micron sieve would be sand, everything caught in the 4 micron sieve would be silt and the rest would be clay.
Finding a 4 micron sieve may be hard, but should be possible.
Wouldn't you need to let that sit longer? considering the water isn't clear, doesn't that mean the Fines/Loam haven't settled which means you could have a higher percentage of fines
Yes you would. I test soil for a living, the fine fractions (passing 75um) hadn't settled yet.
How Many Layers are there in RIVER SIDE SOIL SAMPLE ?
I'm from India .
Typically, there should be about 3 main layers to any soil type. Maybe a 4th if you consider debris as a 4th.
I'm from Australia. I really want to visit India one day... You're such lovely people!!!
What you called "sand" is it really sand? because you just mix soil with normal water. It will be different if you add hot water or with other solution that can break the organic bended with soil particle.
@@suhardisuhardi8388 umm... Possibly... You mean that it (the "sand") might actually be smaller particles that are simply bonded together tightly that appear like sand?
If this is the case, for a more scientific approach to soil analysis, your insight is 100% valid however, for someone simply looking to improve their soil quality at home, I'm not sure it would matter a great deal, as this type of material will still act like sand, and therefore, should be treated as such... I think so because no watering or rain will be able to break down these specific materials as well... At least, I don't think so.
It's a good insight you've presented though... I really appreciate your point of view here, because it shows us all that there is more to think about and learn, so, thank you!!!
How long does a settle process last?
G'Day MC. Here's what one of my viewers said about the times (it's very interesting)
"Singye Dorji said...
I've read that sand settles in 60 seconds, silt in 30 minutes and clay 24 or more hours. So if you mark off the horizons in 60 seconds, 30 minutes and then a day later you wouldn't have to try and guess where the sand layer ends and silt begins. Been researching how to test soil for silt clay and sand content for making carb."
I let mine settle for about 4 hours or so... I hope this helps.
Thanks for watching.
Jim
Great it was nice video and good ideas thanks for sharing all of those info
Fungus and bacteria plays a roll in why plants uptake nutrients. What is the effect of round up on this process ?
Round up is absolute trash. It's made by a company called Monsanto. They are an evil company who want to destroy all natural crops so the world is left with their genetically modified products. What happened to the World Trade Center on 9-11 should also happen to Monsanto with every staff member inside the building.
Hi
That dirt is really dry
Well done! I don't understand why you don't have more views on your channel? Your videos are high quality, not too long and well researched!
Thanks Elyse. It'll get there . . . I'm a patient man. I appreciate the nice comments.
I agree
Your comment convinced me to sub. ty
Rob S my comment?
i think you measured too early. isnt it better to wait for several days for the water to clear up and most of the sediments to settle?
i read somewhere you can measure overall depth, shake, take immediate measurement for sand, wait 5 minutes take measure of silt, then subtract those from the overall depth for clay.
but, my sample settled to its overall height in like half an hour. 33% clay 66%sand and like no silt.
Is this method applicable on pots' soil??
Sure, give it a try.
Thank you for the informative, succinct video. I will subscribe!
Thanks a lo
Your jar is slightly curved at the bottom, for more accuracy you’d need a perfect cylinder.
Hi Jim,
Thank you for sharing your expertise. If we have only jars with larger circumference, how would that alter your % reading? and how long did you let your three samples sit to settle? Thanks again.
Larger circumference won't change anything; use the same method 😁
I let mine settle for a number of hours, but if you want the most accurate results, let it sit for more than 24 hours.
Teach sent me too. It was quite interesting.
Awesome.
The silt and sand layers were a bit hard to distinguish in my opinion. At the beginning I didn't tell the difference. If you had left them for a little more time, would that contrast have been clearer?
+cradleofalex Probably, although, looking at them in real life, rather than on a screen, it was easier to see. I also had the advantage of being able to view the photo in high resolution and blow it up in size to see the changes in soil composition as a reference when I was creating the lines on the screen for the video in my editing software.
If you could test better quality soil, you'd be able to see the difference a lot better too, as there would be more of each layer to see. I might do a follow up video to show this. Perhaps I might try to get a few different types of did to show more of the differences. You've given me a good idea! Thanks for the feedback.
Urban Self Sufficiency I've read that sand settles in 60 seconds, silt in 30 minutes and clay 24 or more hours. So if you mark off the horizons in 60 seconds, 30 minutes and then a day later you wouldn't have to try and guess where the sand layer ends and silt begins. Been researching how test soil for silt clay and sand content for making carb. Hope this info is useful.
+Singye Dorji Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the tip!
Jim.
Singye Dorji I just took a soil science course and those are very similar to what we used, 88 seconds for sand, 4 hours for silt and then I think 15-18 hours for clay.
Which is best percentage of soil plzzz tell me
Yes! These figures mean nothing to me, if I don't know what the soil should be
Great video, it was a help in doing my own testing in my garden... I do have a question. How did you amend you soil to bring up the percentage of Silt & Clay. Thank for posting you video.
Hey Sal, thanks for watching.
I basically used a crap load of crap... Cow manure. And mushroom compost and some new soil from the garden centre as well. But mainly, I just kept adding composted manure until it was better.
Thank you for the information.
Thank you this was very helpful!👍🏻😌🌱
Tank uuuuuu
could you please tell me the ideal percentage of each matter?
@Rubayat The answer is included at 4:17.
Please l need notes
Open Google word document.
Click "Tools", then click "Voice Typing".
Play the video and allow the audio to be picked up by your microphone and Google will transcribe into text.
Done. 😁
You would get a lot better results from this if you baked the soil, and crushed it up before adding water. Bake it at around 180°F/80°C.
Really? I've not heard of that before. Thank you!!!
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency I managed engineering soils labs for like 6 years. Their objectives are different than say a horticultural/scientists soils lab, wherein we were only interested in physical characteristics such as particle size distribution (like what your video is about), density, compressive strength, and organic content.
Another thing you can do is take a baked sample, document its natural and baked weights, then cook it much higher at 800°F/425°C (which is not so easy to do at home): everything cooked off at the higher temperature is organic matter. Then from there you can compute the percentage of organic content in the sample.
I wish weight of soil must be equal because they have different type of soil. Some soil can observe more water.
My soil is also a very high percentage of sand and very little clay. How did you go about amending your soil?
Hey Ryan, thanks for watching.
I basically used a crap load of crap... Cow manure. And mushroom compost and some new soil from the garden centre as well. But mainly, I just kept adding composted manure until it was better.
@@UrbanSelfSufficiency Just to be clear doing this will not add any clay to your soil, just organic matter.
Thanks! Going to do some testing of the area I plan to do veggies next season!
All these videos using marker on glass. Just put a strip of tape on it, then you won't have to remove the marker afterwards. (Mark on the tape or use the tape as teh marker)
Good tip. Thank you 😊
Why would you only scrape top soil area? You need to go down more, get various areas using same soil complexity, and put in bucket. Mix it well, sift it until fine in texture. C then do this test. If not, your test is misleading.
Thank you so much for sharing this! So informative.
Thank you very much for the kind words. I'm glad you liked it.
Jim.
kindly check? is it silk/silt first then clay next? or is it the other way around as you said?
The sand will settle first, then the silt, then the clay last.
I am not sure, you are using a correct expression for silt. You told "loom or silt" layer. Loam is the mixture of 20% clay, 40% silt and 40% sand. Normally a silt layer contains very fine quartz (silicon dioxide) and granite powder (and feldspar). The grain size is between sand and clay, a small amount of silt has the same size as clay.
See this picture:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loam#/media/File:SoilTexture_USDA.png
The optimal mixture, you talked about in the video is exactly the loam.
Here's a good one on loam, whether sandy, or silty ua-cam.com/video/9pOJ4uVJ7qo/v-deo.html
This video is very informative! Nice tip😃. . . for me to take soil sampling on my backyard garden.🌱😀🌱😀🏵️🥝
Very useful video.
Thanks
Thanks Glyn!
Thank You...Great Video...
Thanks!
Nice video. I to don't understand why you haven't had more views!!!!
+Mike Hurd Thanks Mike.
My soil also has 79% sand. How can I correct that?
A lot of cow manure and mushroom compost.
❤️👍
nice
Nice!
Don’t include the thick glass base of the jar!
im using your video for homeschooling math and science :)
Wow! Really? That's great! Thank you for letting me know. That's really rewarding to know.
me too!! my boys are loving it!
@@allendaily2140 I'm so humbled to learn of this. Thank you.
I am too! I think it’s great basic lnformation.
❤❤❤❤
Here from remote ag
My
Clay teacher had me look at this
Add sand to clay, a wasted day. Add clay to sand, money in the hand. Why? A hand full of tiny clay particles can coat every grain of sand in a bucket of sand. The reverse is like putting gravel in a bucket of water. Everything is still wet. Or to continue the analogy, a few grains of sand cannot alter the nature of clay.
Mithilesh Vishwakarma
👏👍🤘
Note: sampels must bee deeper for building uses
Yes, this is for gardening purposes. For building purposes, I suppose people should probably speak with a qualified geotechnical engineer.
Repent for your sins and believe in jesus now he died for you and me!
For science shit online class :)
Enjoy? This is about entertainment? If so try a livelier tone of voice.
I appreciate the feedback. I hope you learnt something from it, at least :) (Other than, I have a monotone voice hahaha).
You are absolutely no idea what you're talking about
have*