soil

Vertical soil core sampler

Designed By Yoav Bashan

Environmental Microbiology Group, Northwestern Center for Biological Research (CIBNOR), La Paz, B.C.S., Mexico

Vertical soil core sampler in a wheat field

A soil core sampler and the related technique for vertical quantitative determinations of soil rhizosphere microorganisms are described. It is easy to construct, requires no special maintenance, and was successful in numerous field trials during the last 20 years.

The main advantages of the core sampler are:

Undisturbed soil samples are withdrawn without of soil compaction.
A relatively small force is needed to insert or raise the coring tool from the soil.
Sampling time is relatively short (up to 15 min for the whole procedure under field conditions) which allows intensive sampling.
The coring tool will not rust, is light weight, and requires no lubrication.
The cutting head can be removable by hand.
Removing samples from the tube is quick and simple.
Disadvantage: The coring tool does not function well in muddy soils or over-irrigated agricultural land.

The tool may be easily adapted to other types of soil research, such as root distribution and routine soil testing.

This website contains technical descriptions of the tool and its accessories, a technical diagram, the procedure for extracting samples under field conditions, photos (in two photo galleries), a PowerPoint presentation of the sampling procedure (4.8 MB), and a PDF publication describing the entire procedure and equipment

The two soil samplers that we routinely used were constructed by: the team led by Eng. J. Wolowelsky at the steel shop of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and by Mr. Guillermo Garcia-Cortes at the technical workshop of CIBNOR in Mexico.