An improved technique for measuring soil water desorption curves of a large number of soil cores was tested. A procedure for improving contact between the soil and a tension medium resulted in rapid extraction of water from 7.6 .times. 7.6 cm cores at pressure heads from 0 to -500 cm of water. The data for clay and sandy loam cores showed that equilibrium was reached in less than 200 h at all pressure heads. The tension medium, used essentially as a large porous plate, was carefully chosen with a narrow pore size distribution. This provided a high hydraulic conductivity and high air-entry values, both necessary for efficient desorption over the pressure head range 0 to -500 cm of water. A tensiometer-pressure transducer combination for establishing equilibration time proved more reliable than the traditional weight-loss criterion. The consistency and reproducibility of desorption curves was demonstrated using data for hysteretic loops as well as standard deviations of water contents at each pressure head on similar soils.