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Soil, leaf, pollen and seed

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Soil sample What a soil container needs Grit on the thread is the quiet failure Leaf sample Pollen sample Which the shelf serves at the small end Seed saving Which makes the liner matter And amber or an opaque container for light What all four share References

No table, so no quoted authority. The requirements are still specific.

Soil sample

Collected into a wide mouth container, often filled to exclude air for anything volatile, and kept cool. The methods live under SW-846 rather than Table II, with their own guidance.

What a soil container needs

A mouth wide enough for a corer or a trowel, a wall that will not be scratched into the sample, and a closure that survives grit on the threads. 194 jars on this shelf.

Grit on the thread is the quiet failure

Soil between a cap and a neck means a seal that leaks and a cap that will not come off cleanly in the laboratory. Wiping the thread before closing is the whole fix.

Leaf sample

Usually dried or kept cool, and the enemy is moisture and crushing. A rigid container stops the second and a desiccant handles the first.

Pollen sample

Tiny quantities, static, and easily lost to the walls of a container. A small smooth vial, filled and sealed immediately, and handled as little as possible.

Which the shelf serves at the small end

124 containers at 60 mL or under. For pollen and for small botanical subsamples that is the relevant range.

Seed saving

The one leaf where the container is a long-term store rather than a transport. Dry, dark, cool and sealed, and the seed is alive, so respiration and moisture are the variables.

Which makes the liner matter

11 liners and sealing discs on this shelf. A seed store that breathes is a seed store that loses viability over a winter.

And amber or an opaque container for light

52 amber containers. Light degrades stored seed and some botanical samples, and a dark cupboard does the same job for free.

Label at the point of collection, not afterwards. A sample whose location and date were written down later is a sample with an uncertainty nobody recorded.

References

40 CFR part 136 is "Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants" under the Clean Water Act. It governs compliance monitoring: permit reporting and regulated discharges. It does not bind a student, a gardener or a landowner sampling their own water, and this property uses it outside that scope as the best available statement of what a container does to a sample rather than as a requirement.

The Davis Pack Supply catalog, measured 19 October 2026. The field sampling shelf is 768 rows: 359 containers and 409 closures. 5 mL to 950 mL with a median of 118; 124 containers at 60 mL or under, 211 at 120 or under, 317 at 500 or under, and nothing above a litre. 146 PET, 108 glass, 92 HDPE, 13 PP, no LDPE and no fluoropolymer. 194 jars, 163 bottles, 2 tubes. 103 clear, 82 white, 52 amber, 34 natural. Closures: 346 continuous thread, 27 dome lids, 14 phenolic, 11 liners and sealing discs, 6 specialty.

Written from 40 CFR 136.3 Table II and from the catalog as it stood on 19 October 2026. Part 136 governs Clean Water Act compliance monitoring; it is used here for everything else as the best available statement of what a container does to a water sample, not as a rule that binds a student with a creek. Nothing on this shelf is sold precleaned or certified for regulated sampling, and no preservation chemistry is given, because that belongs to the laboratory running the analysis.