this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
10 points (91.7% liked)

Soil Science

560 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to c/soilscience @ slrpunk.net!

A science based community to discuss and learn all things related to soils.



Notice Board

This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.



Subdisciplines of soil science include:

These subdisciplines are used by various other disciplines, particularly those related to reclamation, remediation, and agriculture.

Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. Please use a tag.
  4. No spam.
  5. Memes are welcome, but the focus of this community is science-based


Resources

Blogs

Careers

Chemistry

Classification

Maps & Datasets

Canada

Europe

United States

World

Soil Contamination:



Similar Communities


Sister Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Plants and Gardening

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Memes



Find us on Reddit

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I know I can send soil samples to my local university extension office for testing, but how do I test soil for glyphosate-based herbicides, lead, arsenic, and other contaminates?

As a citizen scientist I'm about to get into composting more on my property and would like to know more.

top 2 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] Track_Shovel 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

University turnaround is pretty slow. Use a private environmental lab like Bureau Veritas.

On the sidebar, I link to CCME soil contaminants. That's a good place to start, however you probably don't have to test for all of them. I would definitely do metals, but unless you've reason to suspect chemicals you can probably do without it. Knowing your compost feedstock will help a lot with preliminary screening.

Bunch of leaves you raked up from your back yard? Don't need to check for glyphosate, given you know what they've been exposed to.

Random-ass organic amendment you got off some FB permaculture group? Test the shit out of it, just to be safe.

The reason I'm pushing you away from testing for organic compounds is that they are really expensive to test for. Metals are more common contaminants generally, and run about $40-80/sample, IIRC

[โ€“] casey@mander.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Awesome! Thank you!!

I am about to start to attempt to collect compost feedstock from various resources and not sure how to tell if chemicals were ever used.

Thanks for the info!