THE SOIL - KNOW THE SOIL TEXTURE

Easy and Simple ways to determine soil texture

Soil Texture is known as the proportion of sand, silt and clay particles present in the soil.

It is important to determine soil texture because it helps to analyse the 3 important characteristics of the soil such as water-holding capacity, permeability and soil workability.

Note: If you want to improve soil texture you can add some amount of sand which will create some space for air and water to flow and last but not least don’t forget to add the compost.

To know the soil texture easily you can try some simple tricks;

Throw ball Test to determine the quality of clay soil

Action: Take a handful of the wet soil, form a ball out of it and throw it on a surface i.e., wall or floor and observe the result.

Squeeze Test to determine the quality of sandy soil

Action: Take a handful of the wet soil, squeeze it and observe the result

Generally it is said that loamy soil is good enough for the plants which is a good mixture of sand, slit and clay.

Let’s have a look towards a simple technique used to determine the proportion of clay, slit and sand in the soil.

Bottle Test

Action: Take a bottle, and put some amount of soil in it (approx. 5 cm). Fill the bottle with water and keep it aside for some time.

The bottom layer is sand
The middle layer is slit
The top layer is clay

Loamy soil is a mixture of 30% of Clay, 20% of Slit and 50% of Sand which is considered best for plants to grow well.

Furthermore the soil can be categorized into 5 categories of texture;

Coarse texture
Moderately coarse texture
Medium texture
Fine texture
Moderately fine texture

How to know soil texture for your plants?

So here is all you need to know about the soil texture.

Generally we buy the soil from the market only. But if you are a true plant lover and just want to be a little choosy for everything you are getting for your plant right from the soil then you should definitely try out these tricks and choose the best out of it!!!