• FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    How the hell am I supposed to read this chart? I picked a spot and got a total of 140%, that’s too much soil!

    • Dravin@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Ternary plots (aka Triangle plots) have three axes rotated and layered on top of each other. So when you get a point like this:

      You read it as 50% of the way up the clay direction:

      30% of the way up the sand direction:

      20% of the way up the silt direction:

      So it is 50% clay, 30% sand, and 20% silt.

    • davidgro@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The lines to follow are the ones at the angle that the little arrow points. Which is ‘down and to the right’ from each side if you put that side on top

  • ChaoticNeutralCzech@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    Areas with loam touch all three sides. So… Some kind of loam exists without sand, some without clay and some without silt. I am not a soil scientist but I’d guess that any substance that contains neither is a kind of loam.

  • weariedfae@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Man I’ve gone my whole career without ever dealing with this BS. We use USCS. One time my boss had to deal with it because of some permitting shenanigans with an agency (USDA?) and he said it was stupid.

    • The_v@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It makes more sense if you use it as intended. It’s designed to be a simple way for farmers/gardeners to classify the basic soil composition by particle size.

      Take a cup of dirt, put it in a mason jar, fill it full of water, put a lid on tight and shake the hell out of it. Come back in 3-4 days and measure the layers.

      This comes in helpful in applying pesticides and basic water management. It’s pretty much pointless for anything else.

  • Codex@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Somehow I’m bothered that Sandy Clay Loam and Silty Clay Loam are both a thing, but Loam is already the “Silty Sandy Low-Clay Loam” and a the middle-most area is “Clay Loam” instead of pure loam. WHY IS CLAY’S POWER SO GREAT!?

    Is this what keeps the soil kingdoms in balance? The two rivals, silt and sand, locked in eternal hatred and yet forced to cooperate to maintain balance against the all consuming Clay Empire?

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        7 months ago

        My favorite “Big X” thing was something I just found on lemmy recently, it had me laughing harder than it really should have tbh.

        “Big Small is just trying to get you to buy more less!”