Sandy or Clayey Assessing Your Soil Texture at Home - Eli Oliver

[Eli Oliver]

Okay, so I'm Eli Oliver.

I started at USU last semester,
so this is my second semester.

First year.

I'm originally from Tennessee.

From a middle of nowhere town,

about an hour and a half east of
Nashville.

I graduated from UT Knoxville.

Bachelor's in soil science.

Let's see, okay.

Just to show,

I kind of have some idea of what,
I know what I'm doing.

I was on the UT solar judging team
from spring 2017 to fall 2019,

and within that span, we were the regional

and national champion team in 2017, 2018,

and I was the first place individual
at the 2019 regionals.

And I'll argue with some people
that we would have won

nationals in 2020
had they not canceled it due to Covid.

Okay, you can switch to the next one.

Okay so before I go off telling you
how to texture and what it entails, I'm,

basically just kind of go over
why we care about texture.

It's one of the most basic
soil properties, but it influences

so many other things.

It's really good to know what you have

before you go adding things to it
or amending your soil.

Some of the main things
texture effects is water storage,

drainage and water infiltration.

And just kind of explain this.

If you have a sandy soil, you're going to

irrigate at a lesser amount,
but you're going to do it

at a more frequent interval.

And, with clays, you're going to irrigate
for a longer amount of time,

but you're not going to do it
as frequently.

So you'll do it for just 1 or 2
days, compared to maybe

3 or 4 days for a sandy soil,
or depending on what you need.

It also affects the amount
of aeration in the soil

and along with the ease
of working the soil up.

If you have a real high clay percentage
soil, you're going to have a hard time

tilling it up, if you need to,
especially if it starts to dry out.

And it also affects your soil fertility

because, all of your nutrient holding
capacity is going to come from your clay.

It's got the, the largest
amount of surface area per unit volume.

So that's where all your nutrient holding
capacity comes from.

And there's really not any on the
silt and sand sized particles and,

it also lets you know what kind of topsoil
you want to use.

Ideally, you want to use an equal mixture
of about the three particle sizes.

And we'll get more into that
of what that is.

And what constitutes this.

But you want a good mixture of each one

if you're ordering in topsoil to use.

And you can switch to the next one now.

Okay so,

there's three particle sizes
that make up soil texture.

Sand, silt and clay.

Sand is 0.08in to .002in.

And sorry for the

real small numbers on here,
this is usually in metric.

So I converted it over to inches.

Sand is going to be the only particle size
visible to the naked eye.

The other two,
you need microscopes to see, and clay,

you're going to need
a real strong microscope to see,

the individual particles,
as you can see, silt is

0.002 to eight to the negative fifth in.

And clay is everything less than
eight to the negative fifth in diameter.

And I'm not including
rock fragments in this, but rock fragment

is anything bigger than the sand sized
particles.

And here's a visual representation,

so you can see each size
compared to each other.

And this is in metric,
but you can still see

how much bigger sand is than the other two
and how small clay is.

And something to note here.

Clay isn't really the shape it is
in this diagram.

It's more of a platy-

shaped particle,
and the other two are more spherical.

And that, again, ties
into some of the surface area

properties of the clays.

If you want to switch.

Okay so just some of the goals for today.

I'm going to try to teach everybody
how to texture by feel.

And doing that,
we'll learn how to estimate

the particle percentages
of your sand, silt and clay.

And then I'll show you how to determine
the texture class of your soil

and what that might mean for you.

Okay, so before I get into the
different texture classes and how to do it

I want to tell you
how each particle size will feel.

So you can kind of have

a general idea of what you're doing
before we actually texture it.

So clay is going to be real sticky.

As you get higher amounts, it's
going to feel

real similar to modeling clay or playdo.

And if you let it dry out,
it's going to get real hard.

But the main thing to take from clay
is it's going to stick to your fingers

and it's going to feel like modeling clay
or playdo.

Sand.

It's going to feel real
coarse and gritty at high amounts.

And if it's primarily sand,

you're going to have a real
loose feeling soil

and it's not going to form together
as well as one with clay will.

And silt's kind of hard
to describe.

Most people,

when they're texturing
they go off of the other two and just

subtract what that would be from
100 to get your silt.

But, the way to describe silt,
it's smooth but not sticky.

And I think,

when you have a high amount of silt,
it almost kind of feels like flour

or things like that.

It's not going to stick to you,
but it's not coarse like sand is.

You can switch.

Okay so, here's a diagram.

I'll go more into this on the next slide.

But this is just showing you,

once you go to estimate
all three of your particle sizes,

this is telling you, what texture class
you have,

the ideal soil and one you want to

kind of pay attention to if you have to
order topsoil in, is your loam.

And that's kind of the equal percentage
of all three.

And that's going to give you the greatest,

I guess, balance of water-holding capacity
and drainage.

If you had a clay soil,
it's going to hold the water.

It's going to hold more water than a

sandy soil will, but
it's not going to drain as fast either.

And you might run into drainage issues.

While sandy soil,

it's going to drain real good,
but it won't hold it much either.

So ideally you want either a loam,
silt loam,

or maybe a sandy loam too.

And, this is just showing you

how to use the triangle.

If you're by yourself,
you can follow this link.

This is going to go to the NRCS
Soil Texture Calculator.

And at this website
you can just type in what you think each

particle size percentage is
and it'll tell you.

But, I'll show you
how to, use this triangle.

So what we'll do,
we'll start with sand percentages.

So we'll go to 40% sand and Melony,

if you click these, it'll bring up arrows
I have on the triangle.

So we'll go 40% sand and then silt
will be on the right side going down.

So 40% silt.

It'll look like that.

And then 20% clay.

Clay is going to go on the left
and just go sideways.

So you get that,
and that'll leave you with the loam.

And we'll go through the other two
real fast just so everybody

gets a good idea.

One with 50% sand, 10% silt,

and 40% clay is going to leave you
with the sandy clay.

And by the way,
that's one of the hardest textures to do.

It just feels so weird.

And, finally, one with 15% sand, 55% silt,

and 30% clay is going to leave you
with the silty clay loam.

And again, if you,

find this too confusing to read, I know
it takes some getting used to at first.

You can always just go to this website,
especially as we go to do your own later,

and you could just type
in what you think it is

and it'll automatically give you the

particle size class for it.

So this right here,

don't worry about this.

I just wanted to show you,
this is the flow chart.

The Natural Resource Conservation Service

has put together when determining texture.

I'll go through all this step by step.

But the only thing I think you really need
to pay attention to, and I'll,

I'll remind you of that is,
there's a, in the middle,

there's, different links for the ribbon
and I'll go into that.

And that's kind of how you can
estimate your clay percentage

and go off of your texture
based from there.

But we'll get into that after this.

Okay so the first thing you want to do
when texturing,

you're going to want
a decent amount of soil on your hand.

I think the guidelines from
that starts about 25g.

You really just want to fill your palm up.

And yours isn't going to
look like this here.

This is soil I had that I ground up
for analysis, and it's real dry.

So that's why it
looks the way it does. But,

you just want a good amount in your hand

and, what you want to do, you want to
wet it the soil until it's moist.

And you don't want it too wet,
what you want,

you kind of
want it to have a shine on the surface.

If you have too much water, it's
going to cause the soil to fall apart.

And you're going to have to either
start again or add more dry soil to it to

get it to take.

But if you don't add enough water,
you won't be able to feel,

or adequately feel all the different
particle sizes, and you can't

get an accurate texture by feel.

So, you kind of want it to have a shine.

Let me see if I can get it here.

I don't know if you can see that here,
but that's about how wet you want it.

I can work it up real good

and feel everything right now.

So what we're going to do after
we get it wet.

If I'm going to fast on any of this,
just slow me down too.

But, we're going to try to form a ball
in your hands.

And only soils
with high sand percentages,

that's the only one
will not be able to form a ball.

So automatically, if you can't form a ball
with the soil,

you know you have just sand.

And a good way to tell, or pickup
on clay content early on.

It's going to feel very firm
when working the soil into a ball.

If you have high amounts of clay.

And after this, we're going
to try to form a ribbon from the ball.

And I'll go into that more later.

So this is what, ideally
what your ball should look like.

Again you want a decent amount.

Notice the shine on here.

So that's kind of how wet you want it.

And just try to form the ball
in your hands.

Again, if you don't have a lot of sand,
it won't be able to form a ball.

But only, the only one not able to form
a ball is straight sand.

Even on the triangle early,
there's this sandy loam category

which is close to straight sand but it's,
it should still be able to form a ball.

So I don't think anybody here
will have straight sand, hopefully.

And again, your clay soils
are going to feel very firm.

So, we'll start on the ribbon now

if you want to go to the next one.

So, what we're going to do,

if you just have,
I'm gonna work this up in a ball again.

Trash can

so I don't get too nasty.

So I have my,

I don't know if you can see this,
but I have my ball here.

So what we're going to do is we're going
to want to try to make a ribbon with it.

So what we'll do,

get it is about as round as you can.

And you want to hold your thumb on the top
and push it over your index finger,

like this.

Could you hold your hand up a little bit
higher?

Can you see it now?

Maybe down a little bit.
So yeah. There you go.

Okay.

So we're going to push it over
our index finger.

And what we're trying to look for here
is how long it gets before it breaks.

And that's a good way to,

estimate your clay percentage and,

the breaks here.

If you have about a less
than one inch ribbon before it breaks,

you're going to either have a loam,

silt loam or a sandy loam.

And the way to determine from there.

First off, you go by your ribbon length
and that'll,

give you a rough estimate
of your clay percentage.

And then if it feels real gritty,
you'll probably have a sandy loam.

If it feels extra smooth,

it'll be a silt loam.

And then if it's neither,
you just go with a loam.

If it's about one to two inches
before breaking,

you're either going to have a sandy clay
loam, silty clay loam or clay loam.

And again, just go off the grittiness
or smoothness to it

after you have your ribbon size.

And let me try to work it up more.

The soil I got was really dry too,

so I had to add a lot of water to it
before it'd start to take.

And if it's more than two inches

or 5cm,
you're going to get into your real high

clay texture classes
and that'll either be,

sandy clay, silty clay or clay.

And once you get over about 50 to 60%
clay, that's super high.

Like a high
clay percentage is to like 30%.

But once you're over 50 or so, it's
just going to be straight clay

on all of the triangle.

So, if you want to go to the next slide,

it shows kind of what it should look like
when you first work it up.

So that's how you go.

Just keep pushing it over
until you get it.

And you kind of
want it thinner than that. But

that's what it should look like
when you first start making your ribbon,

and you just kind of
want it to fall over your finger here.

And this is a good way just to get an idea
when you're first doing it.

A lot of people,

they don't, or a lot of people I know
don't even use the ribbon method.

They've just done it so much,
they kind of know how it feels like. But,

the ribbon is the best way to tell for
the first time, how much clay you have.

And if you go to the next slide.

That'll show,
what the final ribbon should look like.

And that's from the same soil
I'm holding here.

It just looks different.

I probably had it

at a better consistency
when I first worked up, but,

again, your higher clay contents
are going to lead to longer ribbons.

And that ribbon there, I have it,

here, probably right up

close to maybe two inches or so.

So I think this and it's, doesn't
feel gritty at all.

It's kind of smooth.

So this is probably either
a silty clay loam or a silty clay.

Going based off this, I forget what
the soil series had it described as but

going off the ribbon

it's going to be right
on the borderline of those two.

And you would just make your best estimate
at that point.

Getting it that close is pretty good
no matter what.

If you want to go to the next slide,

I can tell you
some other things to consider.

And if anybody needs me to go back

or show more of the ribbon, just put it
in the chat and I'll try to show it more.

But a way to help with determining

the exact sand percentage of your soil.

So what we want to do
is put a real small amount

in our hand, and by a small amount, I mean

something,

I don't know if you can see

how much I have here, but not much.

Maybe a little more than this.
But it won't take much.

And there's no sand in this either.

But just to show you
kind of how much you want.

So you put a very small amount and you'll
leave it in the palm of your hand,

and that'll make a mess here.

But oh well.

So what you'll do, you'll about flood
your hand.

Just get like, a pool of water,

and you want to have it thoroughly,
and you want to rub it in,

and you want to

get it good
and just kind of let it drain out.

And if you have sand in there,

the sand should all only sand
should be left.

All the others
should wash out with the water.

If you just kind of carefully drain it.

And what you do is you compare what's
remaining to the initial amount you had,

and that'll give you a rough,
rough estimate of your sand.

And, if you go based off of that,

you can add that to your clay percentage.

Eli, I understand when you're flooding
your hand, you cannot hold your hand

over your computer for it
to show up in the video.

Please don't do that.

Can you describe it?

You've got
you've got some soil in your hand.

You're adding water like a puddle, right?

Yeah. And you're-

Don't try to show that for the video.

Here I'll stay right

You're able to hold your hand
further away from the camera, yep.

Back up a little bit and you
should be able to show that,

There you go. Okay, well.

All I did was get my hand real wet,
and I had, like, a pinch of soil in there,

you just rub it in.

You just rub it in and drain it out,

and you can see the sand grains left over,
and you kind of compare

the amount they take up on your hand to
what was there before.

And that'll give you a rough estimate
of your sand percentage.

And if you add that to your clay, you can
subtract it from 100 to get your silt.

And then, add that to determine
what texture class

you have.

And then there's some other weird
ways to pick up on sand.

You can hear it.

I know it sounds weird,
but if you have a lot of sand,

you can put it up to your ear
when you're working it in the ball,

and you'll kind of hear that gritty sound.

And, it's really
just to let you know that it's there

and you can't really determine
how much you have

at that point, but it's a good indication
that you have sand.

And, I know a lot of people
that have tasted their soil

to try to determine sand.

I wouldn't recommend doing this.

That, those sand grains
are going to stay in your mouth

a lot longer than you think they would,
and it, it's not a fun time.

Also, no telling what's

in your soil sample that you have,
so you probably don't

want to go around eating it anyway.

But some of the people I did soil judging
with didn't really care,

and they'd eat it all the time.

Again with soil.

If you have high clay contents, it's
going to leave a fingerprint behind too.

And what I mean by
that is if you take your ball

and just push it in, you can see, you
probably can't see too good there,

but it'll leave behind the fingerprint
on the ball that you can see.

If it's mainly silt or sand,
it won't do that.

And, if you have high clay soils,
something we would do for fun.

We'd let them dry out and throw each other
throw at each other,

and they'd stay together as a ball.

If there's anything else

I need to go over or re-texture anything
just let me know.