Last weekend, I participated in a Missouri Master Naturalist Field Trip to soil pits in a forested area maintained by a Springfield High School. A member of our chapter that is a soil scientist led the field trip.

We were concerned about ticks, so everyone was in protective clothing…and sprayed! The initial walk into the forest was full of low growing jumpseed.

At the first soil pit (surrounded by a wire fence), we got a tutorial on soil analysis – textures, structure and color. We passed around lumps of damp soil, so everyone learned to judge soil texture. This was not a ‘clean hands’ field trip!

Our group was subdivided into groups of 3-4 and we went through the process on our own for another pit. Ours had 4 horizons.

After that adventure, we hiked to other pits to see differences in pits that were dug to show soil differences based on terrain and orientation. One had bedrock and another had a lot of sediment (it was in the floodplain of a stream).

As we hiked, we crossed the dry stream; there was a lot of bedrock to see!