Not my pit, but a really pretty profile I yanked from the Rode Island soils Instagram

We don’t have fragipans in my area. This one looks a lot like a Sombric brunisol (Canadian classification) to me.

They mentioned they were surprised to see 7% clay lol

I would hope so! I hold a M.Sc. in soils and did 10 years of soil surveying

You’re referring to the texture triangle.

But yes, all textures are just different ratios of the size fractions (sand 2 mm to 0.05 mm, silt 0.05 mm to 0.002 mm, clay <0.002 mm).

Not all clays will swell - kaolinite is a 1:1 clay for instance but 2:1 clays like montmorillonite will hydrate and swell to a greater degree.

In the A you usually get granular structure (if it’s high in carbon, like mollisols/chernozems), or platy if it’s an elvuiated A, like you would find in a spodzol/brunisol

In B horizons structure is caused by shrink-swell action in 2:1 clays. Water gets in the clay sheets and spreads them apart, and the sheets contract when they dry out. Freezing can also have an effect. Since a hexagon is the most efficient shape, you get prisms forming. Think I’d the Giant’s Causeway - columnar basalt, but with much weaker and different forces.

You might ask how do I get structure in non-clay soils? Clay is in every texture almost but in different proportions. sandy loam has clay in it too, for instance

The platy structure in the A horizon I mention earlier forms from the B shrinking and swelling as well.

I wouldn’t say meaningless (though I see you refine your commentary in another comment).

It’s one of those ‘how do you prove a negative?’ or ‘how can we be sure that it’s really the mechanism we think it is?’

While unglamorous, these types of experiments are the load-bearing Tupperware of larger bodies of science.

This is a good experiment. I like that they look at depleted soils, as it’s showing what happens to marginal soils when heated and helps fill in the picture of what we can expect to see during climate change. This also improves modeling accuracy.

Kentucky soils (or was it Georgian?) are depleted from cropping but are also naturally low in nutrients as they are in warmer climates and the nutrient pool has already been naturally depleted from pre-ag biomass and then by Ag itself.

They aren’t saying warming won’t increase emissions. They are saying you need warming and a system like the boreal, prairies or organic soils to see the impact.

Warming in these systems increases soil microbial activity and mineralisation of the organic matter which yields CO2

They probably aren’t actually doing this though - native seeds are a pain in the dick to collect - you’re not going to waste them strapping them to a dog lol

Poetic

@Five@slrpnk.net mod me

I don’t know why you were downvoted; you are right. Plant based is the way to go, and I say this as your typical omnivorous white dude. Until we get more buy in from people (changing diets) and from corporations, it’s unlikely to change, though.

A few points I would like to make:

1. Soil degradation of corn:soy systems is largely due to tillage. No till is better, but perhaps not as good as agroforestry

2. Proponents of agroforestry often gloss over the changes required to actually practice it. Where a farmer can use large combines to harvest corn and soy relatively easily, he now has trees interrupting harvest, or its harder to harvest the diverse cropping systems (e.g., food bearing trees). While the benefits of argo forestry are real, so are the challenges.

3. Soil C sequestration from these systems is most likely temporary, and net neutral, but will reduce input costs

4. We need to switch away from beef - eat more chikn

No, just fingers. You can do it using instruments, but they are slow and expensive.

If you want ‘accurate’ texture, you have to take the soil, put it in a cup of water, blend it up with a milkshake machine, and then measure it with a hydrometer over 24 hrs. If you’re lucky, you’ll get with in 15% of the actual value for that particular sample. The thing is, though, soils vary drastically even over short distances (or depths).

This is why I drink.

Hand texturing is rolling and molding a bit of soil between your fingers to determine texture, which is a proxy of particle size distribution (e.g. sand, silt, clay percentage). Texture lets you know soil drainage and such.

You texture each horizon to get an understanding of the profile (whole vertical slice of soil, comprised of several layers).

Since the soil slowly dries out your hands, they get pretty rough by the end of a day (or 12, 14, or 21, in my case)

Welcome to the club. Every pedologists I know is hanging on for dear life to the last tattered edges of their sanity.

Idk, I use the Canadian system

One minor point of clarification: they talk about the soil profile - in backyard settings this has been removed, and then topsoil has been brought in so you’re left with 4 inches of topsoil over your C horizon. The topsoil you have is not the topsoil that was there.

While I think veganism is an honourable thing, I think it can be difficult to do.

I don’t mind seed bombing provided native spp. Are used.

Wait more than one person says it like this?

Bone-apple-tea!

Jokes aside, welcome to our little corner of the web. There is some really cool stuff here if you’re even remotely interested in environmental crap. We are pretty far left on the spectrum (heck, more like anarchists), even by Lemmy standards, I think, but we are also a pretty chill bunch.

Any storage options?