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Old 21-05-2007, 10:55 PM posted to rec.gardens
John McWilliams John McWilliams is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Sep 2006
Posts: 57
Default moisture content in soil

Bill Rose wrote:
In article .com,
john wrote:

On May 21, 4:06 pm, John McWilliams wrote:
john wrote:
On May 15, 8:58 pm, john wrote:
Could anyone tell me what peat with a 70% moisture content would look
and feel like. I would appreciate any help
John
I found the answer and as no one in this group seems to know I will
explain.
You get completely dry peat and weigh it - say 100g.
You then add water and weigh it again. If it weights 150g it contains
50% water content. If it weights 170g it contains 70% moisture
content.
Simple!
Perhaps simple, but wrong. In your first example, if it weighed 200g,
it'd be at 50% water.



It is really important that i know this so could you explain further.
For 100g of dry peat what would it weight with 70% moisture content?

John


john, if 70% of the wetted peat's weight is water, then the dry peat
represents 30% or .3(x) = 100g where "x" equals the total weight.
Rearrange: x = 100g/.3 = 333.3333g

So you would have 3 1/3 times more water than peat in the final product.


Having thought a bit further on this, it may be that volume by weight
and volume by mass may have gotten mixed in the first formula.

In any event, john, what is the final application to which you are
trying to find the optimum mixture of peat and water?

--
John McWilliams