You have sampled the soil of your garden and it has a soil organic carbon (SOC) content of 5.39 % SOC. Our class notes on organic matter give a simple method for converting between SOC and soil organic matter (SOM) content. What is the approximate SOM content (in g SOM/kg soil, to the nearest 0.01 g SOM/kg soil) of your garden soil?

A soil test report tells you that your sample has a soil organic carbon (SOC) content of 0.0435 g SOC/g soil. What is the approximate SOM content (in % SOM by weight, to the nearest 0.001 % SOM) of the sample described in the soil test report?

The depth of the "furrow" is variable. Consider a forest soil (a Spodosol) from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Just underneath the fresh litter-layer on the forest floor of this Spodosol, is an O horizon that is 4.0 cm thick. This O horizon is dominated by well-decomposed soil organic matter (SOM), and the SOM content of this O horizon is 91.6 % by weight. In addition, we measured the N content, and found the SOM to contain 4.9 % nitrogen by weight. This O horizon has a bulk density of just 0.59 g/cm³. What is the approximate weight (in kg N) of the nitrogen in this SOM in the HFS for this O horizon that is 4.0 cm thick, with a bulk density of 0.59 grams per cm³?