Am I the only one who was digging square holes for 3 seasons before someone said something?
I do a lot of test pit work around Tucson and I always cut my units square because that's how I was taught. Back in March a retired guy visiting the site watched me for a bit and asked why I wasn't digging a round shovel test pit instead. He said square walls collapse on you and you lose more dirt off the sides when you screen it. I switched to round pits that afternoon and my screen recovery went up enough that I stopped losing tiny flakes. Now a 30 cm round pit takes me about 10 minutes less than my old square ones and the walls hold fine in this caliche. Anyone else run into a small tip like that which flipped how they dig?