Soil is a critical factor for land potential, productivity, and crop yields, is useful in correctly identifying your soil, and can be an important indicator of soil health.
Why is soil color important?
Soil is a critical factor for land potential, productivity, and crop yields. Correctly identifying soil is vital information for decision-making for farmers, natural resource managers, land planners, and other land manager. Soil color can be a useful tool for correctly identifying your soil and can be an important indicator of soil health. Soil color is linked to mineral composition, soil fertility, soil organic matter, and more.
How is soil color measured?
The Munsell System is the most commonly used color notation system for classifying soil color. This system allows you to compare soils from any location in the world. The color system has three components:
- Hue: the color (red, yellow, and blue)
- Value: the lightness or darkness of that color
- Chroma: the intensity of the color
For example, a 7.5YR 6/8 is a reddish-yellow soil where 7.5YR represents the hue, 6 is the value, and 8 is the intensity.
To determine your soil color with Munsell, color books are typically used where the soil is compared against the color chips in the book. With the LandPKS Soil ID app, you can use the camera on your smartphone to take a picture of your soil and determine its Munsell color value.
Learn how to use the app to determine soil color.
Additional Resources
Measurement of Soil Color: A Comparison Between Smartphone Camera and Munsell Color Book (2017, PDF, 3 MB)
Soil Colors of the United States (USDA-NRCS)
