what are the descriptions of sandy,loam & clay soil?
Don’t listen to the person who just answered. They didn’t even bother to consult a book. Look up soil TEXTURE in a soils or plant science book. The mineral components of soil are composed of three main SIZES (once you sift out the rocks). Those three you mentioned are the different size classes. Sand sieves from 2 to 0.05 mm, Silt from 0.05 to 0.0002mm and clay is smaller than 0.002mm. You can represent the pecentages of these particles in soils in a triangle. 100% sand in one corner, 100% silt in another and, 100% clay in the last. The mid-point of a side of the triangle would be 50%. The side represents %sand, % silt, and % clay. OK, what you want to know: Soil scientist have used this soil triangle to group textures into functional classes such as sandy clay, silty caly, silt loam, etc. A “sandy” soil will just have more sand (since this is a non-technical term and not one of the classes). A loam is a technical term and refers to a class of soil that is relativly close to the center
