Soil Porosity

A porosity test was conducted to determine the ease with which oxygen, nitrogen, and other necessary elements can work their way through the soil into the root zones of plants. For this experiment, a 250 mL beaker was filled to 200 mL with moderately dry soil and gently tapped down. A 100 mL graduated cylinder was also filled to 100 mL. The water was slowly added to the soil until it began to pool slightly at the surface as such:

A small amount of the excess was put back into th graduated cylinder as it was too flooded. This resulted in our remaining water becoming cloudy but still a accurate representation of the amount left:

The remaining water was measured to be at ~62 mL remaining:

To find the soil porsity therefore, you subtract the original 100 mL by what is left, 62 mL, and get 38 mL as what was used. You divide this by the amount of soil used, 200 mL, and multiply by 100 to find soil porosity, or (100 - 62) / (200) x 100. This yeilds a soil porosity of .19, or 19%.

- Andrew