Soil Analysis

Our soil laboratories have state-of-the-art analytical equipment and technical staff with expertise in all widely-recognised techniques to characterise soil physical, chemical and biological properties. These facilities complement our Soil Management Facility, the Wolfson Field Laboratory, and the CHAP and AgriEPI AgriTech Centres.

Our facilities

Soil Physics

Standard laboratory analyses according to British Standards Institute (BSI) approved methods
Particle size analysis by laser diffraction and the pipette method
Particle density by the pycnometer method
Soil aggregate stability using wet sieving and raindrop impact methods
Soil bulk density by core and excavation methods
Soil compaction using digital penetrometers and bulk density rings
Soil moisture characteristics using pressure plates and sand tables
Soil water using moisture sensors in the field
Soil infiltration rates using infiltrometers
Soil micro-structure by X-ray computed tomography
Soil shear strength using tor vanes and shear boxes (translational and tri-axial)
Soil surface roughness using a Micro-Epsilon laser sensor measuring vertical displacement.

Soil Chemistry

Standard laboratory analyses according to British Standards Institute (BSI) approved methods
Total elemental analysis by microwave digestion and analysis by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS)
Total, organic and inorganic carbon and nitrogen by a CN analyser
Available nitrogen and phosphorus by standard extractions and colorimetric analysis in segmental flow analysers
Cation exchange capacity, and exchangeable cations and acidity
Soil pH, redox potential and dissolved gases by sampling soil solution and analysis using micro-electrodes
Mid- and near-infra-red spectrometry for analysis of soil mineralogy
Solute diffusion coefficients in soil by measurement of concentration-distance profiles and mathematical analysis

Soil Biology

Soil biomass carbon by fumigation-extraction
Phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA) describes the viable microbial community’s phenotype based on organism-specific membranes biomarkers
DNA approaches e.g. shotgun metagenomics and amplicon sequencing combined with bioinformatics and advice on eDNA sample preparation, choices of primers and sequencing platforms, sequence quality filtering and interpretation, including taxonomic and functional analysis
Catabolic response profiles by measuring multiple-substrate induced respiration using the Rapid Automated Bacterial Impedance Technique (RABIT), gas chromatography and colorimetry
Soil extracellular enzymes by analyzing substrates of the fluorophore 4-methylumbelliferone (4-MUF) complex to assay multiple enzyme activities (e.g. phosphatase, sulfatase, cellobiohydrolase, glucosaminidase)
Thermal Efficiency by isothermal micro-calorimetry to quantify carbon assimilation and resource use efficiencies in soil
Macro and mesofauna population estimations using various in-field techniques and laboratory methodologies such as tullgren funnels