How to Perform Soil Sampling and Testing

1. How to Perform Soil Sampling and Testing? Do you want to know the soil composition in your farm or garden to boost productivity? Soil microbial testing is the only answer to all your questions related to soil fertility and management. It also helps you determine what kind of fertilizer you need to fix any deficiency or problem in your soil. But, before getting into your soil testing procedure, you must ensure proper soil sampling for the soil analysis to know about the pH value and available nutrients in your soil. Whether you want to send your soil to a soil testing laboratory or want to perform soil microbe testing at your place, soil sampling is an important stage to get the right soil composition and accurate results. Read on to know more about soil sampling and testing to have complete control over the soil composition in your field, garden, or lawn. Soil Sampling Taking a good soil sample is necessary to perform proper soil analysis for the best results. Soil samples are collected from the field for which you want to analyze the soil composition before your next farming. During the soil sampling, it is assumed that the soil sample under consideration represents the entire field that requires treatment. It is why you need to take the proper care while collecting samples from your field to ensure that your soil sample truly represents the right composition of your entire field. It is better to divide your farm into different subareas to take multiple samples in order to avoid any differences in the soil test results due to the samples taken from various parts of your field. For good soil sampling, collect samples separately from different subareas considering various soil management units. You can consider differences in texture, color, land slope, soil drainage, crop history to divide subareas in your field for the proper observation before soil sampling. The same amount of subsamples should be mixed thoroughly to create the final sample which is called a composite sample. The composite sample is used for soil testing in a laboratory or using a soil testing kit at your place. How to take soil samples? 1.Clear the surface from the sample spot and dig a hole about 4-inches to 8-inches depending on whether you are taking samples from a lawn or farm. 2.Cut down using a spade tip to remove a slice from one side of the wall of the hole. 3.Cut away the sides of the slice to create a section to create a 1 x 1-inch section for soil subsample. 4.Now place all the subsamples in a container and mix them together well to create a mixture for your composite sample. Soil Testing You can send your composite soil sample to a soil testing laboratory for the soil analysis or purchase a soil testing kit of your own to analyze the soil composition. A soil testing kit comes with all the essential tools, equipment, and guidelines to help you test your soil samples. It is a great alternative to laboratory testing as it saves you a lot of time to get the test results. These are the basic information that you need to know about soil sampling and testing for soil analysis. You can easily purchase a soil testing kit from a reputed supplier of agriculture supplies as per your requirements to perform sampling and testing.

2. Source: https://microbiometer.com/