The consensus of soil fertility specialists working in the northeast USA was that soil testing and recommendation systems for P needed to be reexamined because of recent changes in soil testing methodology in the laboratory and corn (Zea mays L.) production technology in the field. Soil tests (M-COL, MM-COL, B-ICP, M1-ICP, and M3-ICP) were performed by either colorimetry or inductively coupled ...

Global positioning systems (GPS), yield monitors, various forms of remote sensing, new computer software, and variable rate technology are new tools available to producers. Intensive soil sampling and crop scouting methods that directly relate each sample or measurement with their geographical coordinates complement the new technological package. Soil testing is a diagnostic tool that adapts we...

Improving estimates of carbon inventories in soils is currently hindered by lack of a rapid analysis method for total soil carbon. A rapid, accurate, and precise method that could be used in the field would be a significant benefit to researchers investigating carbon cycling in soils and dynamics of soil carbon in global change processes. We tested a new analysis method for predicting total soi...

determination of volume change of unsaturated soils during loading and suction change is one of the most important difficulties in testing unsaturated specimens. it is revealed from literature review that various attempts have been made to invent an apparatus that can be used in testing on unsaturated soil specimens, simply and accurately. in this research, details of design and manufacture of ...

This article investigates possible alternatives for soil compaction testing to potentially replace the standard testing equipment by examining all the testing methods for reproducibility and repeatability. This study found that coefficients of variation and standard error to the mean produced the best results that fit with previous studies.

The Direct Simple Shear (DSS) test is one of the laboratory element testing devices that has been widely used to assess soil behavior. Although the DSS test is considered to simulate the cyclic shear loading mode from the earthquakes in an effective manner, the most commonly used versions of the test device (such as the NGI-type DSS device) do not provide means of measuring the lateral stresses...

In this study, total heavy metal content and its effects on soil microbiological characteristics were investigated in soil samples from an area with known long-term pollution problems. The total heavy metal concentrations of contaminated soil samples were 109 and 1,558 mg/kg for Hg and As, respectively. Key microbiological parameters measured included dehydrogenase activity, ATP content and num...