Percent Organic Matter

ooops

The soil started at 28.1 grams after being heated in the oven over night. We then placed the soil on the Bunsen burner, but failed to put it in a crucible resulting in some possible errors in our results. When we checked on our soil it had turned to a reddish brown color in some places. Then the foil started to burn through so some of our soil fell through which could affect the resulting mass. After the Bunsen burner the soil weighed 25.6 grams, suggesting that 2.5 grams was lost as organic matter. This number could have been higher than it should be since some of our fallen soil could account for the difference in weight. With the numbers we got 2.5 grams of the original total of 31.7 grams would mean that about 7.8% organic matter was in our soil. It wouldn't be necessary to measure the mass alone because we are strictly looking at the difference in weight for this portion of the test. If the crucible was included in the first weight and then again in the second weight it would not effect the difference, or the grams that were lost as organic matter. We eventually would need a weight of only the soil, but since we already measured it for the soil moisture we can just use that as our original soil weight in order to calculate the percent of organic matter in our soil. One reason it is important to have organic matter is because they supply the soil with nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. The organic matter also can absorb water which can be released to plants, helping them grow. It also helps prevent erosion because of water infiltration and the soil aggregation, which improves the soils ability to take up and store water.