Soil Consistency

Soil Consistency the feel of the soil, reflecting relative resistance to pressure: eg friable, firm, hard, loose, plastic. The term soil consistency is used to describe the resistance of a soil at various moisture contents to mechanical stresses or manipulations. It is commonly measured by feeling and manipulating the soil by hand or by pulling a tillage instrument through it. The consistency of soils is generally described at three soil moisture levels: wet, moist and dry. Terms used to describe soil consistency at these three moisture levels are shown in the table.

Wet soils	Moist soils	Dry soils
Stickiness	Plasticity	Nonsticky
Nonplastic	Loose	Loose
Slightly sticky	Slightly plastic	Very friable
Soft	Sticky	Plastic
Friable	Slightly hard	Very sticky
Very plastic	Firm Hard	Very firm
Very hard	Extremely firm	Extremely hard

Terms such as weakly cemented, strongly cemented, and indurated are used to define categories of cementation. Consistency has importance for the practical use of soils such as soil tillage and compaction by farm machinery.

acid basin clays are featured by heavy soil consistency (making the soils difficult to plough both when wet and when dry). Noncalcareous Grey Floodplain soils and Noncalcareous Dark Grey Floodplain soils show firmer consistency. Calcareous Brown Floodplain soils develop more friable consistency. [Md Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan]