Ploughzone Sampling

The project began with very ad hoc gridded fieldwalking, targeting areas thought promising. This eventually developed into corridor walking, a system using 1m wide contiguous 20m long strips. Fieldwalking was abandoned in favour of shovel-pitting although some restricted surface collection continued on some plateau areas.

After its first successful use during the Sigwells pilot study, shovel pitting (sieving a fixed amount of soil at regular intervals) was employed to reduce variables associated with surface conditions. Ultimately however, like fieldwalking, it proved ineffective on middle to lower valley sides and bottoms and the open plain due to soil movement.