Soil coloration

[tw30]

I like wacthing tillage videos on youtube and most are in north dak,ota or texas or far west or north somewhere .The soil is almost pitch black like potting soil .Why is that ?.The soil here is light light brown and somtimes white .Also the soil here is 50% sand and when the sun hits it .It becomes like hot pavement .

 

[jones6780]

Well, be thankfull it is not Georgia red clay.

 

[bp fick]

Soil coloration is caused by many factors. Iron leaves red, black is often a sign of decomposed carbon and high fertility. The minute particles of rock, broken down into the silts, sands and soils also determine the soil color.

Most people might like to have rich black Chernozem soil, but not many of us do. I have multi colors, but its all sand. It's the hand the glacier left me to play. Grew up truck farming blue/grey clay soils. I don't think much of that either.

 

[waltsp]

I seen the Georgia Clay, dealt with the red clay in North Central Texas.

The Texas Black Gumbo is another story.

It has three states
1) Wet, when in this state it is like Glue. It sticks to anything and everything, and it sticks in layers. If you are 5 foot tall, after a while you could qualify for the NBA.
2) Dry, the rippers on a box blade will hardly scratch it and what it does break up turns into the next state.
3) Dusty, if you manage to break up the dry gumbo, it becomes dust not unlike talcum powder.

Worse yet, it can exist in all three states at once. A light rain will make the top layer Wet, just below that will be Dusty, and below it all is Dry. This is possibly the worst, because what sticks to your shoes/tires will be wet/dusty/wet/dusty in infinite layers.

 

[schmism]

The soil is almost pitch black like potting soil .Why is that ?.

because its good topsoil. good organic growing medium.

most of the midwest is that way. having received most of the topsoil from the northern states and Canada when the glaciers scraped it all off and deposited it here.

 

[MF RED in MT]

Hey tw30, here in Montana when we dig a hole, the different colors are only of the rocks from the hole :laughing:. Also once in a while we will dig up a cup full of dirt with all the rocks . KC

 

[tw30]

on a side note h ow is the bear/elk hunting up there in montana ?

 

[charlz]

The places I have seen the most black soil look like they had been grasslands for thousands of years if not longer. Black soil indicates high carbon content. Grasslands would seem to store a lot of carbon and with annual die-off store it in the soil. Not to mention the occasional wildfire adding carbon as well.

 

[Botabill]

I live in east central Ontario. Our soil is white. Oh no my mistake, a small part of the year that white stuff melts and then soil is dark clay about 8 inches deep. Full of minerals but heavy. This area was forest for a long time before we cleared the land and I expect that contributes to the richness. Now it has lost a lot of the humous that the forests fed the soil so it helps to keep feeding the soil lots of humous. I drove through Georgia years ago and I was really impressed by the colour of the red clay there. I wondered though if it was fertile.