Professor Discovered Forgotten 141-Year-Old Samples

Professor Discovered Forgotten 141-Year-Old Samples AG WORLD 26-6-22 Four years ago, Professor Ted Peck at the University of Illinois discovered some 30,000 soil samples that had long been forgotten in the basement of a building on campus. The soil samples date back to 1861. The University of Illinois is already home to the oldest continuous agricultural research fields in the U.S., going back to 1876. Now it can claim some 30,000 soil samples that go back even farther. "This find has enabled us to describe baseline environmental conditions in Illinois before man-made environmental changes became common place," says Peck. The soil samples were originally analyzed for acidity, limestone, total carbon, total nitrogen, total phosphorous, total potassium, and acid soluble P and K. Peck sees each jar as a snapshot of the condition of the state's most valuable resource. He says that someday we may want to get serious about our environment, and we may want to know something about base levels. Peck is now in the process of archiving his find. His goal is to establish what will be known officially as the Illinois Archival Soil Collection. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ted R. Peck, Ph. D., Professor, Soil Chemistry Extension, University of Illinois, Turner Hall, 1102 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, Ill. 61801 (ph 217 333-9486; fax 217 244-3219).

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