Compaction meter?

[Rob Holmes]

Has anyone got one of these:

https://www.enviromonitors.co.uk/soil-water/soil-compaction/spectrum-6120

Are they any good?

Can i get one any cheaper?

 

[Brisel]

Don't be stingy! Get the Dickey John one. If it saves you hours of spade work & enables you to just dig where you have detected a problem having sampled multiple points then it will have soon earned it's keep.

The cheapest way is a bit of 8mm rod with a handle welded on the top! You are only looking for a change in the resistance when you hit a pan layer. The gauge on the one in the link is for showing that resistance change. In dry clay the resistance will be high whether it is compacted or not. The same soil when waterlogged will show much less resistance.

 

[Rob Holmes]

How is the Dickey John one different to that other one, they look the same

 

[Brisel]

I don't know really - I had a Dickey John one at my last farm which was a bit more rounded but was well built. I don't have one now - 50+% stone content renders penetrometers virtually useless & makes spade work the only option.

 

[warksfarmer]

Has anyone got one of these:

https://www.enviromonitors.co.uk/soil-water/soil-compaction/spectrum-6120

Are they any good?

Can i get one any cheaper?

Yes use it all the time as it beats digging with a spade.

If its stoney then they are a waste of time though.

Keep the end cone right as they come off easily.

 

[SilliamWhale]

I use one a bit and like it but once you get a feel for it a steel rod is also fine.

So I'd borrow someone else's first and see how you get on. Any only use it on saturated soil or you will be spending money on cultivating kit!

 

[Clive]

pointless tool

I have one of these

and one of these

and also one of these

used together will tell you much more about compaction than a meter which will mostly tell you how wet your soil is and where the stones are

 

[Great In Grass]

@Rob Holmes I have two compaction meter's, one has a crack in the glass (it failed the dairy farmer operators test) you are most welcome to have it for the cost of the carriage. I've just spoken to interlink who quoted me £23.00 for shipping

I don't know if it can be repaired but keep it upright and your okay, the lubricant is very thick and I think very little has been lost.

Piccy:

 

[SilliamWhale]

@Clive - all those are good but a meter is helpful as well. I do find once you've used one a few times its not so needed after though as you get a feel for things.

 

[warksfarmer]

@Clive - all those are good but a meter is helpful as well. I do find once you've used one a few times its not so needed after though as you get a feel for things.

You can't really use one on clives soils though due to the stone content, but the flip side to that is that high stone content soils should compact far less because the stones are present.

 

[Clive]

@Clive - all those are good but a meter is helpful as well. I do find once you've used one a few times its not so needed after though as you get a feel for things.

I have one, I only used it once and went back to my spade, its layers you need to look for and not numbers which mean nothing IMO

 

[tw15]

Spade is what you want ,cant look in the soil without digging a hole .

 

[Fragonard]

Spade is what you want ,cant look in the soil without digging a hole .

How deep do we have to dig?

 

[sjt01]

When working in Malawi, I made a penetrometer from a pressure gauge and a Land Rover clutch slave cylinder:

 

[Flat 10]

I’m loving his white shoes

 

[marklr90]

I use an Eijkelkamp Penetrologger (https://en.eijkelkamp.com/products/field-measurement-equipment/penetrologger-set-a.html) for my fieldwork. It takes a reading every 10mm to 80mm soil depth, or until hit a stone! The digital screen is great for showing the resistance throughout the profile and really highlights the loose tilled layer, followed by the dense plough pan and then it varies depending on parent material - graphs can be downloaded and viewed on the laptop. There is a risk of getting caught up on the figures it produces and it's strongly influenced by soil moisture so I would initially recommend a spade and some of the visual soil assessment methods such as VESS (SRUC) or Double Spade (Teagasc).