Forest pedologist

Understanding the soil makes it possible to get good production without damaging the environment, says Haydon Jones. Picture / Amos Chapple

Name: Haydon Jones
Age: 30
Job title: Forest pedologist
Working hours: During fieldwork: from 5.30am. Office: 8.30am to 5pm
Employer: Forest Research; other Crown Research Institutes - Landcare Research, AgResearch; regional councils
Pay: $40,000 to $50,000
Qualifications needed: Masters degree or PhD in science
Career prospects: Small, specialist area but good advancement prospects once employed; own land use or soil mapping consultancy

What do you do?

Few people know what a pedologist does. They usually think it is something to do with feet.

It's a brand of soil science that deals with soil properties, descriptions of classes of soil, soil mapping and land resource assessment. In a nutshell it's about soils and landscape.

Our main project at the moment is doing a carbon budget - sampling soil under native forest and scrub to work out the carbon stock of the soil.

It's part of a wider project to assess what is happening to carbon in the environment and how land use affects and locks up carbon in the soil. It is part of the Kyoto Agreement on climate warming. If carbon is not in the soil it contributes to greenhouse gases.

Why did you choose this job?

I liked geography at high school and, at university, did geography and earth sciences. I fell into the specialist field because I liked soils and how they varied. I'm interested in the way people manage the natural environment, land resources and soil.

Because of the specialist nature of the work, job opportunities are few and far between but once in a position the prospects for advancement are good.

Why is the job important?

It is important to manage soils well to get good production without damaging the environment.

If we don't understand how soils work and vary we will not get good production from our animals, crops and trees. Overstocking compacts soil.

If you don't understand the soil you can use too much fertiliser and soils perform other important functions, such as being a store for carbon in the environment, which has impacts for global warming and climate change.

What's the best thing about the job?

The best thing is the mixture of field and office work. I get to do the research, get my hands dirty, and enjoy the environment - unless it's raining. The worst thing is fieldwork in bad weather. We can be away for a day or, like now in summer, for a week at a time.

We get up at 5.30am, head off to do plot sampling mostly in forest but the odd time on pasture or under scrub. Some days you drive for a long time, others not so far.

We helicopter in to some plots or use a small plane for really remote places. We get core samples using a large steel core that goes 10cm deep.

We take three of those at each of four points, and dig a hole a metre deep to describe the soil. We bag the samples and some of the leaf litter and humus. At the moment we don't analyse samples. We send them off to labs in Palmerston North.

Our job once we are back in the office is to put data in a database and prepare samples for the courier. We look at the data to work out the soil classification.

What are your strengths?

My skills in describing and classifying soil and my fieldwork experience. My weakness is probably being too much of a perfectionist.

Where would you like to be in five years?

Possibly working in another country. I would like to broaden my horizons, see different places, people and soils. Another possibility is to have my own land-use and soil-mapping consultancy.

What is your job hunting advice?

A good pedologist has a passion for the outdoors and for explaining soils. Be prepared to look overseas, be adaptable. You might have to adjust your skill-set to meet the demands of different organisations. Very few organisations have people who just map and classify soils.