El Zota Soils Data

El Zota Soils

Feel free to reference any of the following data. The data was generated by students at El Zota for their field projects. Analyses were done under field conditions with a battery powered pH meter and a simple LaMotte soil texture kit.

Study 1: July 2001

First year study, looking at various sites around the property.

Main road: road along the edge of the property, on the way to the old lagoon.
Forest: near station in swampy region off of Rio Trail.
Lagoon field: grassy area between the road and the lagoon.
Watch road: (Sendero Reloj) - trail through the mature part of the forest, also refered to as "la montana".

quads refers to litter plots (10 m X 10 m) students were using to census small reptiles and amphibians.

#	Location	pH	sand %	silt %	clay %	canopy ht (m)	Date taken
1	Main road	5.9	80	6	14		21 July 2001
2	forest	5.0	66	13	21		21 July 2001
3	lagoon field	6.2	66	10	24		22 July 2001
4	watch road	5.2	27	17	56		23 July 2001
5	watch road -Quad 70	5	53	26.5	20.5	24	24 July 2001
6	watch road - quad 3	4.5	73	23.5	3.5	30	24 July 2001
7	watch road - quad 19	4.5	53	23.5	23.5	22.5	24.July 2001
8	Ryan: low land watch - quad 76	5.5	50	33	17		24 July 2001
9	lRyan: lowland watch - quad 33	5.9	37	43	20		24 July 2001
	Average	5.3	56.11	21.72	22.16
	Standard Deviation	0.62	17.03	11.68	14.14

Study 2: July 23, 2002

Study to compare soils on the swamp trail and the Melina plantation.

The site description refers to the marked trail locations, in meters from the trail head.

SS = swamp trail, MP = Melina plantation

Sample	site description	pH	color	sand %	silt %	clay %
1	SS 810	4.8	brown	43.3	3.3	53.3
2	SS 730	5.5	dk brown	30	16.7	53.3
3	SS 690	6.2	dk brown + organic	33.3	10	56.7
4	SS 630	5.0	dk brown	26.7	30	43.3
5	SS 590	5.7	brown	43.3	50	6.7
Average SS		5.44		35.22	22.00	42.66
STDEV		0.56		7.65	18.50	20.72
7	MP- 10m in	6.2	brown	40	30	30
8	MP- 20 m in	6.1	brown	33.3	26.7	40
9	MP - 30 m in	6.2	brown	23.3	50	26.7
10	MP - 40 m in	6.4	brown	33.3	63.3	3.3
11	MP - 50 m in	6.2	brown	40	30	30
Average MP		6.22		33.98	40	26
STDEV		0.11		6.85	15.97	13.64

Soil pH Study - 9 July 2003

Comparison between soils of 3 different habitats:

Melina Plantation - trees planted for forestry

Pasture - old pasture, with a few horses grazing

Congo/Rio trails - wet trails near Quebrada Zapota
Values from this study seem low, particularily for the Melina plantation, compared to the other soils. We were having some problems with the pH meter at this point, although the meter was calibrated with 2 buffers prior to each day's sampling.

Site	Melina	Pasture	Congo/ Rio Trail
	4.6	5.2	5.3
	4.3	5.8	5.7
	4.5	4.9	5.5
average	4.45	5.3	5.5