I know a lot of y'all take soil samples so I thought I'd post a picture of how I take them at work.

It's a tractor mounted sampling rig that is hydraulically driven and can also auger. Most commonly we take samples 0-24" but sometimes will go up to 48". We divide those up into 6" increments usually. Each year I will take a few thousand samples with this machine.

I guess the question I have is why?

Yeah, why? Is anything gained by going deeper than twelve inches or so?

Probably for sub soil results, but usually from what Ive heard, that is not needed the majority of the time unless there is a problem, generally 6"-8" is the rule.

You go beyond 9" where I food plot, all you are going to get is clay and eventually limestone.

I hear you, never seen anyone take sub soil outside of sewer perk test, but I have heard of it for problem growing areas on crops with tap roots. I know some ares have a thick bed of blow in from the dust bowl days, but don't know what impact that may have. Im like you an usually follow the standard depth recommendations by most labs.

I work in agriculture research, specifically in soil fertility and chemistry. We do research trials on a wide range of crops, mostly cotton though, looking at fertility. When dealing with soil fertility you take alot of soil samples to see what's going on in the soil.

Deeper than 12" in useful. Fertilizer does not just stay in one place even if you never touch it with a plow. Seeing what we have at what depths is important to know what to apply and what is going on. Plus some crops can have a taproot several feet long. We also will sometimes do soil moisture so different depths are important looking at that. Bulk density is another we look at in tillage studies.

Interesting!

Bulk density?

My soil samples are usually only 3-6" deep.

Please bring it to the Blackland prairie in early August. I want to see just how stout of a machine it is.