Test for Clay in Soil 

Always great content without the BS and annoying background music! Thanks again for your time and expertise!🙏🙏

awesome vid! I needed this lesson for my new project. thanks so much!

Thanks. That's the best video I've seen on how to do this test - nothing skipped over. Good job!

Thank you. I appreciate the detailed instruction and explanation on how to do this test and the comparison. Very helpful.

Thank you. Very well documented. Really helped me!

Going to do this right away. Thanks for showing how to do this. Very helpful.

Best description for the math!! I hate math and this helped so much. Thank u!

Interesting, so what I have considered to be clay all these years, is in reality more of a loam. However knowing this information is helpful.

Thank you so much for posting this!

Another great video Jason !! Interesting interpretations between the soils. Super helpful information. Cheers Jason and Colleen 🌱🌱🌱

Very interesting. Thanks for uploading this.😀

Good job. I let my sit 24 hrs and it worked.

Super informative! I guess I'll quit gardening now and take up ceramics. lol 😁

Thanks. That's a great guide and explanation to testing soil's.

Terrific video - thank you so much

Hi Nathan, this was a great video as I'm currently doing a horticulture course and my next subject is soil. So I will be using this information. Cheers mate.

I am definitely going to try this!

Thank you a lot for this video ! Now I know where to dig for clay

Very interesting. I am going to copy this test in my garden.

Brilliant job ❤️

straightforward explanation - thankyou so much - excellent video

Thank you very much.

What you are doing on a small scale is called "levigation". You can pour off the clear water, then separate the clay solution (technically a colloid) and you will be left with the larger dirt and sand particles. The settled dirt can still have a good deal of clay, it really needs to be ground into finer particles to be sure. You can process your soil on a large scale in anything watertight.

the soap reduces surface tension good idea

Aw Brilliant Mate. That's how you do it there!

Love this ❤️

Thanks for the information

Easy but still quite scientific soil jar test. Do you think it would be applicable for observing soil types in different regions? For example, getting some soil samples in different areas of Lower Mainland (Vancouver, Surrey, Langley, etc...) and do soil jar tests might show some interesting differences among them.

Interesting. Thanks.

Thank you for sharing your smart

Your result is very consistent with what I've seen on the Internet gardening forums for the past 20 years. 99% of people who insist they have a clay soil actually have very little clay. If you do a proper soil chemistry test, I believe what you will find is that you have a salt imbalance among sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium with magnesium being the one that is furthest out of whack. There are amendments you can use to open up a clay soil, but those do not work against an ion-imbalanced soil - and vice versa. So once you do the jar test and get the disappointing results, then you can spring for a real soil test to get details on what is really "wrong" with your soil. Excessive magnesium can result from using too much Epsom salt over the years.

loved this

I would be interested in knowing the percentage of actual clay in what is known as “ blue gumbo “ and a more traditional fine brown “silty” soil. I will have to experiment with this.

Hi Fraser, may I dry the soil with a microwave oven for this test?

THANKSGIVING

A contractor hired by the city is working in our neighborhood where we have original sandy loam soil. Contractor is removing the street and replacing it. In my yard alone he cut back behind the concrete 24 inches and loaded up the soil and drove off with it. He took a lot of soil from the other yards as well. He's replacing it with soil on which I did the texture analysis in your video. The results for the "soil" he's bringing in show it to be all clay. There are no layers at all and, in fact, the clay is so bad the jar is still coated with clay and you can't see through the glass jar anywhere. I only filled it 1/3 with the soil sample and then up to 2/3 full when I added water. Compare that to the sample of our original soil that I took from my yard: a very nice layering inside the jar. Yet the city inspector is insisting the fill soil the contractor has brought in is nice, rich topsoil. Have you ever seen soil that is 98% to 100% clay, and only clay????

Thanks for shareing

I did your test, and wondered is it possible to have nearly all clay soil? I do not see any layers, just a solid mass. I could send a photo if you would look at it. Great video btw.

Clay is that on top? Do I just take it out or it will mess up?

Great video. I'm in Rancho Cordova California and the ground I have is old Mining tailings from Dredging the river in the 1800s .the houses In my neighborhood were built in the 1950s. As a result my ground is inundated with cobbles from 1" to 10". I plan on planting bare root roses next Spring. When I dig the holes do you suggest I take the rocks out?

Great! If I want clay to make cob , what do I do?Thank you!

Hallo Jason i want do a test with my roses i Bay some rosen ,and try in a soil padi kaft mix humus.i sent some picture for you.

Wow, great Jason. I'm going to replicate this for my soil. I'm interested for horticulture of course, but also interested in ceramic and clays. Here in upper NYS we have a rock for every dirt. I imagine it will shake out like jar #2 - more rocks but not sure at all about the sand/silt/clay ratio. Here's another thing I've been thinking about: I live on a lake - (you live on a river if I'm right) - I wonder if there is any benefit to using lake or river soil as an amendment to my rocky soil. Maybe I'll do a test on the lake sludge too. (I'm using Eurasian Milfoil as compost) Fun test - thanks so much!!!! Yours truly Jennie

Brilliant. If there both close to loam wouldnt that make them good for plant potting?

Nice to see that you were smart enough to add dish soap , not absolutely necessary but it sure does help speed up the separation process 👍

Gonna thank you for this video, it helped a WHOLE LOT with my garden. I made the test and my soil is so "claily" that the clay layer didn't even settle after more than 24 hours and the silt layer was so thin that it was hard to even notice it. End results are 59% clay and 31% sand! I knew my soil was clay but not that much.

KISS theory Use a drill and a small paint paddle stirrer to break it down well.

nice

Can you use the same jars for peach storing?

-haven't tested my soil like that but dug down @ ten feet in high top clay content then built a kiln think I like that test going to check out My Clay content I found at 10 feet

The sand and silt line is not clear.Even in my test (without dish soap). ANy way out?

Hm. Does the dish soap help if you're trying to collect clay out of the soil by separation?

Here in Utah, there’s a place, “bridal veil falls”. At the bottom of the falls, the dirt in the water is almost like concrete. If you wet your hand or touch the dirt, it leaves a grey, dried out powder. Is that clay?

Ha ha! Thought this was a pottery video

What about a soil with high organic matter? Where does that fit in?

Hi, I tried this test out in my garden and it came out as one homogeneous layer, no visible differences between sand, silt, or clay. I broke up the earth and shook the jar quite a lot. Could it be possible it is all clay? I didn't use soap after seeing another youtuber didnt.. Could that be why?

In the Southeast US this test is easy...all of the soil is clay below one inch depth. Add water, make pottery...

Cool

If your planning to cob house, what your clay ratio?

What would be in suspension above the clay? The water is cloudy

Mother earth is just awesome

But you could purify the clay in both soils with a little bit of washing, right? So it's just a little bit more back and forth from bucket to bucket to make good clay of it.

Let start a course after it

I am going to do this test to different areas of my backyard and garden. My wife planted a Japanese Maple on the side yard and is not doing well. I am not sure if it is the soil or if the tree is receiving too much sunlight. Thoughts?

I have rocky; clay soil. When we get a heavy rain, after I've been digging around, I get gravel like particles that rise to the top and stays.

What is the soap for?

So fill the mason jar up half way and fill up the rest with soup water leaving 3 inches before you get to the top. Shake for 1 min and let sit for 1 day then go to USDA soil calculator and don't believe it just add and add and add any kind of carbon you can to you growing spot/land. Get anything that will brake up from leaves to pine needles to anything and make urself a carbon farm;)

Interesting, thanks. I'm interested in locating clay, period. This is useful info. I know you're aware of the limitations of taking and comparing only two samples. Just as an example, on my old acreage I could take two soil samples just a couple inches apart and get completely different results. Decades ago, the area where one sample was taken had been a regularly mowed lawn, and so the soil going down fairly deeply consisted mostly of decomposed grass. The sample a couple inches away consisted mostly of decomposed limestone gravel going down fairly deeply because for decades it had been a gravel driveway where a fresh gravel layer had been laid down every couple years or so. So, as a result, those two soil samples were extremely different and not representative of the general soil type in the entire 1/2 acre or so of the old yard that I wanted to test. Also, since I'm interested in clays, around here there is a lot of clay, and this city was formerly the location of at least 3 major clay mines and brick yards. Interestingly, the clay was found in strata up to 100 feet thick with various amounts of overburden that had to be bulldozed away to get to the heavy clay deposits. So, of course not only does soil type vary horizontally, but also vertically, with the most extreme example of the latter being bedrock which typically underlies most soil layers. Near here, this soil/bedrock border region also happens to be the location of a material that most of the world is intensely interested in---------gold. ;-)

I would have to soak with the hose for at least 10 minutes to just get a small shovel full. Too much clay

I really appreciate this. I have weird Florida soil... mostly sand, but there's this weird thick mushy stuff that's kind of like.... wet.... concrete? Anyway, this is useful for me. Thanks!

Why should we add dish washing liquid to the sample??? Can we test without using it???

I know I commented years ago but today I ran 1 test on a spot I wanted to build a pond. I went past 6 feet with my post hole digger and it's very sandy. I may get a backhoe rented for 4 hours to do some test holes before I spend $$ on a dozer. Great video

I only have sand at the bottom and clay at the top, only 2 layer is that not normal?

@Whoop!!

3:31 OCD sufferers shouting at the screen: "Those pieces aren't all the *same* size!" Me: "It'll be fine, once it's suspended in water." OCD sufferers: "Whew!"

I like the principle you are working with, but I would calculate my percentages from volume instead. Just fill the jars with water to the lines and then measure the volume.

I wish I had clay soil. All I have is sandy soil =(

Shake it off ah

If I am correct, if you dug down 300mm then took samples, you get completely different figures, so if I am correct, this theory dont work as it only applies to the lvl you dig down too..

I'm getting dizzy you're moving around too much seasick

No test needed that's clay hahahaha it looks like mine . This isn't how you test . How you test is you core aerate and when the tines keep getting clogged you get mad and throw the plug at the shed if it sticks and stays there for weeks and weeks its clay !