The measurement of aggregate stability is widely used for establishing quantified soil condition ratings. These ratings can inform managers and scientists on effective soil management practices and identify regions where poor soil conditions are jeopardizing the environment and soil productivity. However, many current methods for quantifying soil conditions are complicated and time‐consuming, and require specialized equipment, especially the measure of aggregate stability. SLAKES is a smartphone application created by the University of Sydney, Australia, that quantifies aggregate stability through a simple experiment. The experiment requires three pea‐sized soil peds, a petri dish of water, and a smartphone running the SLAKES application. The application takes 10 min to produce an on‐screen measurement of aggregate stability and a downloadable text file of the ped dissolution over time. SLAKES, along with the Cornell Wet Aggregate Stability Test, was used on seven conventional tillage, seven no‐till, and eight perennial grass fields to determine whether the application showed sensitivity to different management practices. All 22 sites were on Vertisols (Typic Haplusterts). The SLAKES results showed higher significant separation of means (p < .0001) between each management type than the Cornell method, which was only able to differentiate between conventional tillage and perennial grass management at a lower significance (p = .06). SLAKES proved to be a legitimate method for quantifying aggregate stability based on slaking. With this simplified aggregate stability measurement method, rating and quantifying soil health is viable for anyone with a portable electronic device and is much less tedious than traditional lab‐based methods.

中文翻译：

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对SLAKES的评估，这是一种智能手机应用程序，用于量化高黏土中的骨料稳定性

骨料稳定性的测量被广泛用于建立量化的土壤条件等级。这些等级可以为管理人员和科学家提供有效的土壤管理方法的信息，并确定土壤条件恶劣会危害环境和土壤生产力的地区。但是，许多当前的土壤条件定量方法既复杂又费时，并且需要专用设备，尤其是骨料稳定性的测量方法。SLAKES是由澳大利亚悉尼大学创建的智能手机应用程序，可通过一个简单的实验量化聚合稳定性。该实验需要三个豌豆大小的土壤，一个陪替氏培养皿和一个运行SLAKES应用程序的智能手机。该应用程序需要10分钟才能在屏幕上生成骨料稳定性的测量值，以及可下载的随时间推移溶出度的文本文件。在7个常规耕作，7个免耕和8个多年生草地上使用了SLAKES以及Cornell湿集料稳定性测试，以确定该应用程序是否显示出对不同管理实践的敏感性。所有22个站点均位于Vertisols（典型的Haplusterts）上。SLAKES结果显示均值的较高显着性分隔（ 与康奈尔方法相比，每种管理类型之间的差异p <.0001），该方法只能以较低的显着性区分传统耕作和多年生禾草管理（p  = .06）。事实证明，使用SLAKES是量化基于碎石的骨料稳定性的合法方法。借助这种简化的集合体稳定性测量方法，对任何拥有便携式电子设备的人来说，对土壤健康进行评级和量化都是可行的，并且比传统的基于实验室的方法要乏味得多。