# Quick Soil Test



## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

Thanks to Progressive Forage Grower...

http://www.progressiveforage.com/forage-production/management/tools-of-the-soil-trade?utm_source=E-newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=101315FGExtra


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## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Can anyone tell me the value of the tests mentioned in this story relative to forage crop production? Take for example the PVC pipe percolation test mentioned. If a heavy clay soil with no plow pan is dry, water will rapidly percolate into it, but if the soil is saturated, percolation will be quite slow. What is the ideal moisture content of a soil for doing this test? Soil structure plays a significant role in water percolation tests. If the structure is platy, percolation likely will be exceedingly slow. If a loamy sand is dry, you may not be able to fill the PVC pipe with water, and if you do manage to fill it, you'd better be fast at timing the water loss to empty. Fertility is the best measure of a soil's ability to produce forage or other crops. Guess I, as a professional soil scientist in fertility and chemistry for more than 40 years and now retired, just don't understand this new concept called soil health. I have to take the above referenced story with the proverbial "grain of salt." Comments anyone???


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

I think what is being implied in this story Vincent is a way for a "quick check" while "in field" on how things are.....just a quick baseline monitoring while out and about walking the land.

Certainly not as precise as chemistry measurements and testing.

Regards, Mike


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Ed Winkle was big on soil health and using The up and coming Soil Health methods.

Rick Haney a Soil Chemist at the Blackland Research center has been big on this concept. Try [email protected] He is on the USDA side if the house.
He got his BS and maybe his MS from a Western OK University and his Ph.D from TAMU.

Ed Winkle liked to use a thing to check the Brick in his fields.

I believe Mr. Doug Galloway and John Haggard also are familiar with Ed Winkle great Truths at least know his hymnal.
Ed developed some kind of cancer and took 6 months to Cross Over the Bar. I will miss Ed.

John Haggard had some unique methods. He claimed his Farmers did not need a long string of insecticides, fungicides, &c .


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