Soil Care: Liquid Phase Or Soil Solution

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read the previous part. ← Soil care: air, mineral and organic components

The sixth property is the ability of the soil to provide plants with water.

The liquid phase of the soil - the soil solution - is the environment where all the processes of absorption of nutrients from the solution and the soil-absorbing complex by plant roots and the exchange response transfer from the roots of hydrogen and OH ions to the soil solution take place.

This is mainly film water, it surrounds all soil particles and roots, envelops them around, creating favorable conditions for exchange processes between the root and the soil-absorbing complex. There is almost no free water in the soil, because it easily goes into deeper layers.

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Cohesive water, film water of the soil, cannot be absorbed by the root, as the pump does. Soil is not a glass of water, and plants are not a pump. Water cannot be simply absorbed by the roots, it is also absorbed by the roots in exchange for hydrophilic colloidal particles, like all other nutrients.

Soil moisture plays a leading role in fertility. The solubility of various compounds in the soil and their absorption by plants depends to a very large extent on its moisture content. Plant roots cannot take nutrients from dry soil. In waterlogged soil, nutrition is also difficult due to the fact that there is a lack of oxygen for the roots of plants, and acidic compounds that are toxic to the roots accumulate in it, so they do not receive nutrition and quickly die off.

As a result, the plant also dies. Particularly harmful is the alternating moisture and drying of the soil. Under such conditions, all fertilizers can become inaccessible to plants. Therefore, the soil must constantly have optimal moisture and fully meet the plants' need for water, and this is achieved by timely and abundant watering over the entire area of plant nutrition.

In the hot season, reserves of winter-spring moisture in the soil can only last for two to three weeks. Therefore, it is necessary to close the moisture by early spring harrowing of the beds in order to disrupt the capillary rise of water to the soil surface and reduce evaporation. Harrowing is often combined with soil mulching and watering.

There are still some difficulties in creating optimal soil moisture - they lie in the unevenness of the soil. Let's imagine the following situation. One plant grows on a hillock and the other in a slight depression. And now it is raining or watering, the plant on the mound will be hungry, since the water will flow into the depression, and the plant in the hole will receive a double portion of water and end up in a swamp.

To remedy the situation, you need to make sure that the microrelief of the site is fairly even, and the water is distributed equally to all plants. And if you want to provide the plants with water in abundance, you first need to level the soil on the site, that is, always maintain its optimal evenness in order to ensure high-quality watering.

The soil is a very complex system, it lives and dies, like any living body. Each climatic zone has its own specific soils. In the taiga zone, and our North-West region belongs to it, the leaching type of water regime prevails, when the amount of precipitation significantly exceeds evaporation, excess water seeps into deep layers and forms sod-podzolic soils.

And where the subsoil layers do not allow water to pass through, swampy soils arise. Sod-podzolic soils are formed on flat land areas, and boggy soils - in low areas, where lowland swamps appear. Therefore, our soils need reclamation (improvement) and, first of all, the removal of excess water.

All horticultures were established in this way, after the construction of the reclamation system. But the reclamation did not end there. Many gardeners think that the swamps are somewhere in the forest, and they are wrong. The swamp is also formed at the summer cottage. The size of the wetland varies from 20 cm in diameter to several meters. If you look closely, you can find many wetlands in your country house. These are problem areas, and they must first of all improve, you need to actively fight for their fertility.

It is very important that the soil cover at a particular summer cottage is even, the slightest unevenness of the relief must be avoided, otherwise water will stagnate in the depressions and a swamp process will form. On elevations, soil erosion and washout processes may appear. Therefore, it is necessary to fight even a slight stagnation of water, since it can immediately change the course of the soil-forming process, the soddy-podzolic process will be replaced by the swamp process.

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It is never too late to level the plot, this work must be carried out always, practically with every tillage. After that, it is easier to water and it is easier to create good fertility in terms of providing plants with water. Thus, the next step towards creating a fertile soil is to provide plants with water. It consists in leveling the soil surface.

It is necessary not to make deep furrows between the beds and flower beds, and regular and abundant watering should be carried out not only near the plant stem, but also around it and between rows along the entire feeding area of the corresponding crop. Watering is necessary infrequently, but abundantly - this is the main rule for increasing soil fertility.

Seventh property of fertility- providing plants with oxygen. There is enough oxygen in the air, you just need to create good conditions for better gas exchange between the soil and atmospheric air. To do this, the soil must be loosened well, with the formation of a crust, fight with harrowing, increase gas exchange between the soil air, poor in oxygen and the atmospheric way, for optimal watering of the beds.

Water, displacing soil air, will replace it with atmospheric air. Therefore, the next step towards creating a fertile soil is the observance of the correct agrotechnical processing of it, which allows you to provide plants with oxygen.

Thus, the whole process of creating fertile soil consists of six main methods and technologies - the introduction of organic and lime fertilizers, clay or sanding of the soil, the use of the entire complex of mineral fertilizers, leveling the soil surface during processing, strict adherence to the cultivation technique of a particular crop. With the obligatory and strict implementation of all methods and technologies, you can easily achieve high soil fertility, which will guarantee a good yield of plants, as well as excellent quality of crop products.

To summarize, in a concentrated form, all measures to maintain soil fertility can be expressed as follows: fertilizers must be applied every spring for digging to a depth of 18 cm with a bed turnover: manure - 8000-10000 g / m?, dolomite flour - 200-300 g / m2, nitrophoska - 100-150, boric acid - 0.2, copper sulfate - 0.2, ammonium molybdate - 0.1 g / m2?, and for fruit and berry crops you need to add 0.1 g / m? zinc sulfate and for vegetable crops 0.1 g / m? cobalt sulfate.

When sowing or planting plants in rows or nests, must it be necessary to apply 7-10 g / m2? superphosphate as a pre-sowing fertilizer. After that, you will not need to worry about fertilizing and think about adding more. In this case, the soil will be able to provide plants with all the nutrients necessary for its growth and development.

Fertilizers should be combined with irrigation, good agricultural technology, clay and sanding the site. This complex of works and fertilizers must be applied annually and in a comprehensive manner, regardless of whether cultivated plants are grown or areas are kept under fallow. Only in this case the soil will always be fertile.

Read the next part. Soil Care: Feed the soil, not the plants! →

Gennady Vasyaev, associate professor,

chief specialist of the

North-West regional scientific center of the Russian Agricultural Academy

Olga Vasyaeva, amateur gardener