Facilities Equipments
The department is well-equipped with instrumentation for analysis of soil, mineral, biological, and water samples. The department has eight specialized laboratories, provided with the most modern and sophisticated equipment needed for teaching and/or research work. These laboratories are functioning in the fields of soil chemistry, soil physics, soil fertility, plant nutrition, pedology, soil survey, microbiology, radio active isotopes and environmental studies. Also there is a laboratory for the community provided service. These laboratories are equipped with the most sophisticated equipment such as atomic absorption (AA), Inductive coupled Plasma ( ICP ), x-ray, differential thermal analysis (DTA), and gas chromatography (GLC). These equipment are among others used for carrying out different analyses required for both research and routine tests.
In addition to the above mentioned laboratories, there is a mobile lab. for soil survey, and field work for conducting soil studies at remote districts. The department has five units of growth chambers and two units in the faculty green house.
The Soil Sciences laboratories are equipped to perform water, soil, waste, and plant, chemical and physical analyses using the most modern analytical equipments. The following categories can be perform in SOSC Lab:
CHEMICAL & PHYSICAL ANALYSES:
- Inorganic analysis of all types of water samples including drinking water and soil/waste/plant extracts.
- Metals, salts, anions.
- Elemental analysis of solid samples such as soil, plant and waste.( total carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur).
- alkalinity, dissolved organic carbon.
- Soil/sediment particle size distribution (sand, silt and clay) fractions.
- Soil Moisture tension measurement.
BIOLOGICAL ANALYSES
The soil Sciences lab performs assays for the detection of bacteria in environmental samples.
- total coliforms
- fecal coliforms
- E. coli