A range of methods and applications are in use to determine soil particle size distribution. Due to the differences in measurement technology, the analytical results may deviate more or less from each other, which has implications for the matching with historical soil databases. There is a need for studies to critically evaluate their results, both concerning subsample variabilities and compatibilities. In the present study the more recent integral suspension pressure (ISP) and laser diffraction (LDM) methods were compared with the reference sieve and pipette (SPM) method. Samples from topsoil and subsoil of four agricultural soils with sandy clay loam to clay textures were analyzed. A protocol, comparing alternative pre-sievings at the meshes 0.063 (ps0.063), 0.2 (ps0.2) and 2.0 mm (ps2) for the sedimentation (SPM, ISP) and laser diffraction (LDM) measurements, was used. Here we report, based on particle size fraction contents for clay (<0.002 mm), silt (0.002–0.063 mm) and sand (0.063–2.0 mm), i) apparent deviations between pre-sieving options for each method, ii) variabilities between sample replicates (three subsamples), and iii) relationships (linear regression) and iv) texture class differences between SPM, ISP and LDM analyses. Overall, SPM showed smallest deviations between pre-sieving options, LDM largest, and ISP intermediate. Higher silt content, for ISP, and higher sand content, for LDM, seemed to be critical in the choice of optimum pre-sieving. Regarding variabilities between replicates, SPM showed smallest variabilities, ISP (especially ISP-ps0.2 and ISP-ps2) and LDM-ps2 largest, and LDM-ps0.063 and LDM-ps0.2 intermediate. SPM-ps0.063, SPM-ps2, ISP-ps2 and ISP-ps0.2 showed strongest relationships (i.e. largest R²) with the reference SPM-ps0.2, LDM-ps0.063 intermediate and LDM-ps2 weakest. Regarding texture classification, compared to the reference SPM-ps0.2, SPM-ps2 and ISP-ps2 showed largest (good, i.e. 80–100% of the cases) agreement, whereas LDM pre-sievings showed smallest (LDM-ps0.063, poor agreement, i.e. <55%). Linear-transfer transformed LDMt-ps0.063 improved the texture compatibility with SPM-ps0.2 to intermediate (63%) agreement, and SPMt-ps0.063 and ISPt-ps0.2 from intermediate (75%) to good (88%) agreement. Also clay-silt cutoff modified LDMc-ps0.063 and LDMc-ps0.2 improved the texture compatibility with SPM-ps0.2, to intermediate (63%) agreement. There is a need to continue fine-tuning methodologies to align particle size distribution composition from one method to the other, especially regarding the influence of equivalent and efficient particle shape and pre-treatment procedures on the results.

使用一系列方法和应用来确定土壤颗粒尺寸分布。由于测量技术的差异，分析结果可能存在或多或少的偏差，这对与历史土壤数据库的匹配具有影响。研究需要严格评估其结果，包括子样本变异性和兼容性。在本研究中，将最新的积分悬浮压力（ISP）和激光衍射（LDM）方法与参考筛移液管（SPM）方法进行了比较。对四种具有砂粘壤土和粘土质地的农业土壤的表土和底土样品进行了分析。使用了一种协议，比较了用于沉降（SPM、ISP）和激光衍射（LDM）测量的网格 0.063（ps0.063）、0.2（ps0.2）和 2.0 mm（ps2）的替代预筛分。在此，我们根据粘土 (<0.002 mm)、淤泥 (0.002–0.063 mm) 和沙子 (0.063–2.0 mm) 的颗粒尺寸分数含量进行报告，i) 每种方法的预筛分选项之间的明显偏差，ii) 变异性样本重复（三个子样本）之间，以及 iii) 关系（线性回归）和 iv) SPM、ISP 和 LDM 分析之间的纹理类别差异。总体而言，SPM 显示预筛分选项之间的偏差最小，LDM 最大，ISP 中间。对于 ISP，较高的淤泥含量和对于 LDM 的较高砂含量似乎对于选择最佳预筛分至关重要。关于重复之间的变异性，SPM 显示出最小的变异性，ISP（尤其是 ISP-ps0.2 和 ISP-ps2）和 LDM-ps2 最大，LDM-ps0.063 和 LDM-ps0.2 居中。SPM-ps0.063、SPM-ps2、ISP-ps2 和ISP-ps0.2 显示出与参考SPM-ps0.2最强的关系（即最大R ^{2 ），LDM-ps0.063 居中，LDM-ps2 最弱。}关于纹理分类，与参考 SPM-ps0.2 相比，SPM-ps2 和 ISP-ps2 显示出最大的一致性（良好，即 80-100% 的情况），而 LDM 预筛分显示出最小的一致性（LDM-ps0.063） ，一致性较差，即<55%）。线性传输变换的LDMt-ps0.063将与SPM-ps0.2的纹理兼容性提高到中等（63％）一致性，并且SPMt-ps0.063和ISPt-ps0.2从中等（75％）提高到良好（88％） ） 协议。此外，粘土-粉砂截断改性的LDMc-ps0.063和LDMc-ps0.2提高了与SPM-ps0.2的纹理兼容性，达到中间（63%）一致性。需要继续微调方法，以将粒度分布组成从一种方法调整到另一种方法，特别是考虑到等效且有效的颗粒形状和预处理程序对结果的影响。