 Collecting a Soil Sample
(2 minutes: 46 seconds)
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Audio/Video Script:
Julie Treat
Horticulture Program Technician
[Title slide - Collecting a Soil Sample, Julie Treat, Horticulture, U of A
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture. Picture of someone holding soil
in their hand and a spade]
[Julie Treat] Today we’re going to show you how to take a soil sample from
your home lawn. A couple of things you will need to start with would be a bucket
to collect your soil in, a shovel to dig with, and a pint jar to put the soil in
to take it to your county extension office. Most people don’t know that this is
a free service that the extension office provides so you need to take advantage
of this to see what’s happening in your yard.
A soil sample basically just shows the plant nutrients that are in the ground
for the plants to take up and it’s going to show you the PH of your soil.
The first step is you want to get your shovel, and dig a hole. You want to
dig about 4 inches deep. We just want the soil to put in your bucket. Remove all
the rocks and roots. Just want soil, no plants, no rocks, no roots. You want to
do this in about twelve different locations in your yard so you can mix the soil
up and get a good representation for your sample to be sent in to the extension
office. [Julie digs plugs of grass, removed the soil and places it in a bucket,
then replaces the plug of grass back into the hole.]
And now I’m taking the soil samples. I’ve taken about twelve to get a good
representation of this yard. And I’ve taken them in a zig zag pattern which is
the best way to get a good representation for your sample. And now I’m going to
start mixing the soil together that I’ve collected.
This soil is a little wet as we had a rain last night, so you’re going to
want to take the soil, you take a dry soil sample into your extension office. So
you can spread this out a newspaper in a garage or in a work area and let it dry
before you send the sample in. [Julie mixes the soil in the bucket with her
hands and then dumps the soil on newspapers to dry.]
[Julie holds a pint jar of dried soil] Now that our soil sample has dried, we
just want to take a pint from that sample and send that in to your county
extension office. Be sure that you label this. If you’ve taken more than one
soil sample from your yard such as your lawn area, you can label it lawn or the
number one. If you’ve taken a second sample as well from your flower bed, you can
label that as number two.
When you’re taking it from your flower bed, you’ll want to remove the mulch
from the bed and dig down in to the soil to take your sample. [Julie scraps
mulch back with a spade in the flower bed and digs soils for sampling.]
In about 3 - 4 weeks, you should receive your results from your soil sample.
And if you have any questions, you can contact extension office. You can also
look on-line for our soil fact sheets for more information concerning your soil
sample.
[Narrator] To learn more, contact your county extension agent and follow
the links in this section.
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