– Water Holding Capacity is the ability of a certain soil texture to physically hold water against the force of gravity. It is important to know the water holding capacity of the soil to determine how much water storage capacity the field has, and to determine how much supplemental irrigation should be applied.

– In order to measure the WHC the first step is to insert a paper filter in a glass funnel.

– Close the bottom of the glass funnel with Parafilm.

– Pour the soil into a funnel with a filter.

– Fill the funnel with water and let the soil soak for 5 hours.

– The funnel is covered with parafilm to reduce Evaporation.

– When the soil is saturated, remove parafilm and allow water to drain overnight (approx. 16 hours).

– After 16h saturation we have to label the aluminum crinkle dish with a sample name and determine the tare of the container.

– Weigh ~10 g of saturated soil sample into the container.  We are taking 3 replicates of the soil.

– Place the sample in the oven at 105 °C and dry it for ~36 hours.

– Remove the sample from the oven and place it in a desiccator in order to cool down to room temperature. Reweigh the samples and calculate the water content (mass basis) as a fraction of the mass of dry soil as follows: