EGU2020-9415
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9415
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

How does pretreatment of dry steppe soils affect particle size analysis by laser diffraction?

Moritz Koza1, Aleksey Prays2, Andrej Bondarovich3, Kanat Akshalov4, Christopher Conrad1, and Gerd Schmidt1
Moritz Koza et al.
  • 1Institute of Geosciences and Geography, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany (moritz.koza@geo.uni-halle.de)
  • 2Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06120 Halle (Saale), Germany (aleksey.prays@landw.uni-halle.de)
  • 3Faculty of Geography, Altai State University, 656049 Barnaul, Russia (bondarovich@geo.asu.ru)
  • 4Department of Soil and Crop Management, Barayev Research and Production Center for Grain Farming, 474010 Shortandy, Kazakhstan (kanatakshalov@mail.ru)

After extensive research on different methods to measure particle size distribution (PSD), soil scientists are proposing the laser diffraction method (LDM) as a standard method for soil texture analysis. However, the effects of different pretreatments on particle size analysis of dry steppe soils with LDM has not been tested so far. This study aims to evaluate different pretreatment methods with the purpose to disperse aggregates and remove binding agents in Chernozem and Kastanozem soils. To cover a wide range of different land-use types and farming methods, 112 surface soil samples were taken from 13 fields on four different test sites in Kazakhstan. Before LDM analysis, all samples were pretreated with either H2O2 to remove organic carbon or HCl to remove carbonates. The results showed that removing organic matter with H2O2 led to complete sample dispersion while HCl pretreatment caused incomplete dispersion, likely due to aggregation by calcium ions released by the dissolution of carbonates.

How to cite: Koza, M., Prays, A., Bondarovich, A., Akshalov, K., Conrad, C., and Schmidt, G.: How does pretreatment of dry steppe soils affect particle size analysis by laser diffraction? , EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-9415, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-9415, 2020