How to Take a Soil Sample

soil testing is important before you do any king of crop production because it will help you to know the kind of fertilizer to use or any other requirements that you need.it also helps you to know the kind of diseases or pathogens in the soil that can affect your crop.
precautions before collecting samples.

1.  wash you hands thoroughly or use cloves
2. clean your tools that you will use
3. avoid collecting soils from the following areas

• ant,mole or termites hill
• near or along fences
• old manure heaps

this will give you wrong results

procedure to collect soils

step one

identify the method to use
zigzag or
traverse


this is how you collect the samples

step two

once you have the method then if you want to grow shallow rooted crops dig 0-30 cm if you want to grow deep rooted crops or plants dig 60- 90 cm

when you have the hole slice along the slope show by the arrow above from the top to the bottom so that you get the soil  from the profile. collect those soils and place them into the bucket
 step three
mix all the samples from the whole land thoroughly in a bucket or a spreed sheet  the get atleast 1/2 kg of the soil and put them in the sample papers.
send them to the lab indicating your

1.  name
2. county
3. phone number
4. email
5. mode in which you want to receive results- box or email 
6. maximum of three crops that you want to grow in the farm* if more that 3 attach others to different  soil sample bag  

other laboratory services testing plant materials to identify diseases or nutrient deficit, water to identify mineral content and suitability for irrigation. further information call lagran at  +254729379092 or email info@lagrangroup.co.ke