Warrior loves to travel. He has explored many different cultures, and he loves to try new foods. His favorite pastime is exploring new places, and He always looks forward to his next trip.
The fifth use will be the primary target of our attention. Soil is a structural support system for plants, holding and releasing the water and nutrients they need to thrive in 15 gallon pot. Half of the Soil’s volume should be made up of air and water pores, while the other half should be made up of solids. Variations in soil texture and management lead pore space to be distributed unpredictably, making this scenario extremely uncommon.
Profile of the Soil
Even in pristine environments, most soils can be broken down into three different layers of varying thicknesses. Three distinct layers can be identified: the surface soil, the subsoil, and the source material. Two or more horizons can exist within each layer. The horizons work together to form the soil profile. Where you are in the state of North Carolina affects the predominant parent material, a type of worn bedrock, which is often the parent material in the mountains and piedmont of North Carolina.
Floodplain Sediments
The floodplain sediments transported downstream from upstream erosion are the parent materials in the riverbeds and stream terraces of North Carolina’s piedmont and mountains. The marine sediments that make up the NC coastal plain were deposited over ages as the waters rose and fell in their natural cycles. The parent material in the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina is primarily organic. Areas once submerged in water are now home to these rich organic soils that date back only about 50,000 years. Plant life is particularly abundant in these swampy environments. Unfortunately, the plant leftovers (leaves, branches, roots, and trunks) in these regions are too damp to break down effectively.
The depth at which you dig into Soil reveals how its qualities change. There is typically less clay in the topsoil layer (O and A horizon in Figure 1-2) and more organic matter and air. Topsoil is the layer closest to the plant, which contains the most significant number of roots.
Texture
The soil texture affects nearly every facet of soil use and management, defined as the percentages of sand, silt, and clay present. From most remarkable (2.0 to 0.05 mm) to smallest (less than 0.002 mm), the sizes of sand, mud, and clay are, respectively, 2.0 to 0.05 mm, 0.05 to 0.002 mm, and clay (Figure 1–5). Imagine a sand grain is the size of a basketball for comparison. A silt particle would be the size of a marble, and a clay particle the size of a pinpoint on such a scale. Many of the physical and chemical features of Soil are determined by how fine (clayey) or coarse (sandy) it is.
Soil’s physical properties can be directly observed, touched, or measured. A few examples are hue, structure, and moisture retention. Such characteristics are often what establish Soil’s viability as a growing medium. Large-scale alterations to some material aspects, including texture, are not viable financially.
Conclusion
The relative amounts of sand establish a soil’s textural class and silt, Soil that is 55% clay and 33% silt, for instance, belongs to the textural clay class. The composition of the Soil is primarily unaffected by human intervention. Let’s say you have an acre with average mineral soil only six inches deep. The ground of that quality weighs around 2 million. A 1% shift in the sand’s composition would necessitate the addition of 20,000 pounds.
