2021/10/20 by A. J. Airori, T. J. Baker, J. K. Turk +1
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Engineering · #Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics #Soil Management and Crop Yield #Soil and Unsaturated Flow
paper · doi:10.1080/00103624.2021.1993887
crossref issued 2021/10/20 · crossref published 2021/10/20 · crossref published-online 2021/10/20 · openalex publication_date 2021/10/20 · crossref created 2021/10/20 · crossref published-print 2022/02/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/01/29 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The clod method is a widely used and accurate bulk density method. However, its use is limited to sampling from soil pits. This study was conducted to: 1) determine whether clods collected from cores provide similar bulk density measurements to those collected from soil pits and 2) evaluate the impact of various clod bulk density methods on carbon stock calculation. Clods were collected from soil pits, 5.1 cm soil cores, and 8.9 cm soil cores. Three-dimensional laser scanning was used to measure the volume of the soil clods before and after oven-drying and bulk density was calculated as the dry mass of the clod divided by volume. Of 24 horizons sampled, 17 showed no significant effect of sampling method (core vs. pit) on dry bulk density. The error introduced by collecting clods from a core was small enough that it had no significant effect on carbon stock (p = .683). However, the moisture at which clods were scanned did have a significant effect on carbon stocks (p = .002 to 0.016). Data from the study suggest that collecting clods from soil cores introduces minimal error, but attention should be given to the moisture state at which clod volume is determined.