Soil Auger

instrument for taking soil samples from various depths. On the basis of purpose and operating principle a distinction is made between rotary augers, which are fed into the soil by rotation with simultaneous pressure, and percussion augers, which are introduced into the soil manually by a blow from a hammer or by the pressure of the arm. Rotary augers—the Mal’kov-VIUA (All-Union Research Institute of Fertilizers and Land Reclamation), Izmail’skii, Smertin, and Rozanov augers—are used to take samples of soil without preserving the soil’s structure in order to determine moisture content, acidity, and nutrient content in the soil. Percussion augers, such as the Kachinskii, Negovelov, and Nekrasov augers, extract soil samples and do not disturb the structure, which is essential for determining the volumetric mass and porosity of the soil. When making mass-scale agrochemical analyses in the USSR and other countries, the cane-type hand augers designed by Osipov are used extensively to obtain mixed soil samples.