How can i know the agriculture soil mixed with bontunite or no.?

Question

How can i know the agriculture soil mixed with bontunite or no.?

Answer 1

From all the research I have done, I can't find that bontunite even exists, so I would say that you would be fairly safe in assuming that your soil is not mixed with it.

Answer 2

I assume you mean bentonite, a clay which is sometimes used as a soil conditioner. It is very difficult to know if any soil conditioner has been used except straight after application. Personally I find that soil conditioners very rarely show the improvements that is attributed to them. Plenty organic matter improves the soil structure and nutrient content. Work with your soil and let the planting and / or grazing regime improve it. Look after it, rotate crops / grazing, grow green manure and put muck on it. Some soil is unsuited for certain crops, so don't grow them, grow the ones that work. If it's only good for grazing, do that. If it's not good enough for that, grow trees on it or make a wildlife sanctuary and charge the visitors / bird watchers / fishermen. Use the bentonite for cleaning up water or the thousand other uses it has in mining, oil drilling, cosmetics...

Answer 3

We can not tell if bentonite has been mixed with a soil unless we discover that the soil changes from having it in the soil inside the fild but absent outside of the field.

If bentonite, or specifically Montmorillonite is present, it may be naturally occuring as it is a significant part of volcanic ash.

The characteristics of Montmorillonite that are wanted include the ability to absorb large amounts of water without organic material, and have an extremely large cation exchange capacity. This capacity allows it to break up clays that do not have similar characteristics, by differential amount of expansion on getting wet.

The classic observation that identifies bentonite clay is that when it dries it shrinks a lot, more than most clays low in sodium.

If a clay soil has a tendency to push sodium salt to the surface, we might wrongly assume that this implies the clay is bentonite. When sodium salt comes to the surface the soil is often a deposit from an ancient ocean.  

All too often people have attempted to break up clays that already have a high Montmorillonite component by adding more Montmorillonite

. That works only for a very short time.

To find out if the soil contains bentonite, take a look at the chemical formula for Montmorillonite

and do an analysis for that chemical. It is typically identified by its high sodium content, but some clays high in potassium appear to have similar characteristics.

Answer 4

This is a great way to test for clay as well as to find out how much of the soil components (gravel, sand, organics,silt, clay,  bottom to top as per below). As was mentioned, you are probably referring to bentonite or clay in general. It is naturally occurring extremely fine mineral sometimes added to a soil in an attempt to amend it's negative properties. With organics, like composts, it is added to improve sandy soils, or with sands to improve mucky, heavy soils. One other nice property of clays are that their smallness make them attractive to some nutrients which they hold in reserve until the soil solution in the root zone picks them off and the plant then takes them in. If your need to know is based on your desire to evaluate your soil for organic purposes, the clay, if added, will probably be mineral as opposed to chemical just because of cost and availability. To know you need to sample the area in question at a number of places (root zone not deeper than 5-6"), as well as surrounding area not incorporated with the area in question as a comparison. Add a "sectional" representative soil sample to water at about 1 part soil to 4 parts water maximum and shake it up very well (to do many tests and to save time you can use a lot of litre plastic soda bottles with some part of the tops removed as long as they all have exactly the same measurements with straight sides somewhat better than slanted but as long as they are the same it's all okay).Then after shaking you can either let it settle in it's container or immediately pour off the unsettled water. The fine clay fraction will stay suspended for a much greater time in either case. When not pouring the liquid off, immediately mark the initial settling of the coarse and heavy soil material. It will be shortly followed by the fine components and over the course of a couple hours the clays will make their own topmost layer. Record the measured thickness of the layers; easy now to see. Measure the clay component on the very top after 1 hour, possibly two if the solution is very cloudy. Keep track of the times from the stop of the mix process to the first measurement, as well as any other measurements and do all samples exactly the same in the exact same (kind) of container. As for pouring off, by doing that immediately you just pour off the clay components to a measuring container to settle for an hour or two but you may not get the most accurate result. Compare numerous samples in and around the area in question. If you have much higher clay in the area than outside, and if the soils are of the type that would really make clay addition a cost effective but necessary addition (if not a necessity than it may be a natural occurrence brought on by farming practices) then it may be that clays were added. It might be worth tracking down the old owner to ask. If you really have to know you can get a sample analyzed but the cost may be prohibitive and aside from doing what I suggested, there will not be much more done with the exception of lab work that starts to really get costly after that. Your need will depend on, and justify anything above and beyond what I outlined, even for the purposes of certification. And, really, how is the soil. If it is good, what is your need?