As the population’s demand increases at a huge rate, food production must be increased to fulfill the demand. To ensure more crop yield productivity, the quality of the soil is the most important aspect. The soil is the most important thing for a crop. The quality of your crop must be dependent upon how fertile your soil is? Healthy soil is more fertile, rich in nutrients, and can hold more water. Soil is the home for microorganisms that fix nitrogen and decompose organic matter, resulting in more fertile soil for excellent crop yield quality. This promotes an increase in crop production.
Today, we will discuss in brief soil fertility and some ways to increase soil fertility. So let’s start a discussion,
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Fertility of Soil
Soil Fertility is the ability of the soil to sustain the growth of the plant and optimize the crop yield. This could enhance the ability through the use of organic and inorganic fertilizer to the soil. Many modern techniques are used to enhance both soil fertility and crop production while minimizing the environmental impact.
Sustainable farming systems require integrated soil fertility management to maximize the productivity of the grown crop. This also ensures the minimization of mining of soil nutrient reverse, physical and chemical properties of the soil, leading to land degradation. These practices are widely used by farmers and growers to ensure agriculture sustainability, not only for their farms but to also help in protecting the environment.
Importance of Soil Fertility:
Fertile soil is the most important requirement of any crop; you plan to grow on the field. Fertile soil is enriched with more nutrients than non-fertile soil, leading to more productivity and better crop yield quality.
To further improve fertility, cover crops that add enormous amounts of organic matter to the soil. This provides the structure to the soil, promoting a healthier crop loaded with nutrients transferred by soil. Using Green Manure or growing legumes to fix the nitrogen from the air through Biological Nitrogen Fixation by microbes.
Top 3 ways to improve the fertility of the soil:
- Provide Nitrogen Source:
- Manure: Animal manure provides an enormous amount of nutrients. On average, the cow manure contains approximately 10 to 15 pound of Nitrogen.
- Compost: Compost contains carbon to nitrogen ratio between 25:1 to 40:1, maintained at an average temperature of 55 to 76.66 celsius for 15 days. If the compost fits in this criteria, then it is much beneficial to the plant.
- Provide Phosphate Source
There are mainly 3 types of mineral phosphate,
- Colloidal Phosphate, from clay
- Soft Rock Phosphate, from sea deposits
- Hard Rock Phosphate, from volcanic deposits
- Provide Potassium Source:
There are also 3 major potassium sources,
- Potassium Sulfate or Potassium Magnesium Sulfate (Langbeinite) is allowed under the National Organic Program Potassium sulfate is a better choice for high Magnesium soils, but it is relatively much reactive. So, it is advisable to use it carefully.
- Granite Dust: This is a good potash source for organic production. It typically contains 1 to 5 per cent potash depending upon overall mineral composition. Granite is a highly insoluble mineral, so little amount of potassium content is easily available in it.
- Gluconate (Greensand): This is a total potash content around 7%. All of that is deeply locked into the mineral. Certain micas, particularly biotite (black mica) contain potash because of mica’s physical structure. This is more available than most rock-type materials in microbially active environments.
Which plant ensures the best fertile soil?
Planting crops such as Alfalfa, clover, beans, vetch, and peas is another way to increase soil fertility. These plants are the past of the legumes family. They provide nitrogen to the plants via an alliance of certain bacteria that colonize the roots, converting nitrogen in the air to a more usable form.
Also, Farmtrac Tractors are supporting the Indian farmer for a very long time. Farmtrac Tractor models come with high performance which hiked up the productivity of the yield.
Which soil is the most fertile for crop production?
Porous loamy soil is the best soil, enriched with all laced and organic matter which retains water with ease. This soil provides all the essential nutrients to the crop. Sand and Clay soils are inclined to have less organic matter, have serious drainage problems. The sand and clay’s biggest difference is that sand is very porous while the clay is impermeable.
What is Topsoil, and why is it considered as the most fertile soil?
Topsoil is a mixture of sand and clay or ground-up rocks, mixed with organic materials such as compost. it is present probably at 6 inches of depth.
Topsoil consists of the most organic and weathered minerals. Several biological agents are also responsible for the breakdown of complex organic matter, which releases simple nutrients. This whole process makes the soil most fertile.
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