Soil sampling protocol

Soil sampling in field

Soil sampling is routinely done to understand the status of soil nutrients and organic carbon. Here is a simple protocol we adopt in sampling a wide area. Here is a video demonstrating one of the approaches to sampling soil in a typical agricultural field.

Packing soil samples for transportation

Soil samples collected from the field need to be transported to the laboratory for analysis. It is important to pack the samples well without air spaces inside the zip lock covers. Here is a demonstration of how to re-pack soil samples received via shipment (air + road) that suffered damage during transportation. This can be kept in mind while soil samples are prepared and packed for shipment.