Soil Care: Air, Mineral And Organic Components

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

Read the previous part. ← Soil care: what the soil is made of

The second property of the soil is to provide plants with carbon dioxide. The air phase of the soil contains little oxygen and is always rich in carbon dioxide, but for plant roots the opposite should be true - a lot of oxygen and less carbon dioxide, because the roots breathe, consuming oxygen and emitting carbon dioxide.

Therefore, the gardener is faced with the task of ensuring good gas exchange between the soil air and atmospheric, in other words, increasing the aeration of the soil so that all carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere as quickly as possible, so that the plant leaves receive carbon dioxide nutrition faster.

Gardener's guide

Plant nurseries Stores of goods for summer cottages Landscape design studios

Plants' need for carbon dioxide is very high. During the summer, they absorb from 2 to 5 kg of carbon dioxide from each square meter of soil. Plant yield is 90% due to this carbon dioxide nutrition.

If there is little carbon dioxide in the ground air, the yield will be low. Soils in their natural state do not have large reserves of carbon dioxide. The gardener's task is to apply carbon dioxide fertilizers and improve gas exchange between soil and atmosphere.

And the best carbon dioxide fertilizer is fresh or semi-rotten manure. Therefore, the ability of the soil to provide plants with carbon dioxide is also solved by applying organic fertilizers.

How much organic fertilizer should be applied? 10 kg / m² annually - this is enough for microorganisms to obtain energy for themselves and to replenish carbon dioxide reserves for plants. And the respiration of the soil can be improved by its good processing, therefore, along with the introduction of organic matter, it is necessary to work well the soil so that it is loose, since when compacted it breathes poorly, the roots of plants and soil microorganisms at the same time suffer from a lack of oxygen and from an excess of carbon dioxide in the soil air.

The third property we have noted along the way of creating fertility is to create optimal physicochemical properties of the soil. Its skeleton is composed of organic and mineral parts.

The organic part of the soil is composed of undecomposed organic matter, humus, humic acids, fulvic acids and their salts. Their stocks can be replenished by the systematic application of organic fertilizers.

The mineral part of the soil is composed of physical clay and physical sand. Its physical properties depend on the ratio of sand and clay in the soil. According to the mechanical composition, the soils are divided into clay, loamy, sandy loam and sandy. The mechanical composition of clay or sandy soils is poorly suited for growing plants, these types of soils must be corrected by applying sanding or claying methods.

Sanding or claying is carried out by introducing 100-150 kg for each square meter of sand or clay. This amount will be quite enough to transfer the clay soil to the category of loamy, and sandy - to sandy loam. Such work does not need to be carried out every year; it is enough to do it once every 20-30 years.

There is another important characteristic for the agrochemical understanding of soil fertility - the capacity of the soil-absorbing complex. This is the total content of colloidal particles in it. The colloidal part of the soil consists of organic and clay particles, it has an amazing property - the ability to absorb and retain nutrients in a state absorbed and available to plants.

The reserves of the organic part of the soil-absorbing complex are consumed very quickly - in just 3-4 years, and the reserves of mineral colloids are sufficient for a fairly long period - for about 30 years. During these periods, they will work as a storehouse for nutrients, provide plants with these substances. But then the mineral colloids are gradually washed out by atmospheric precipitation into the underlying layers of the earth.

The fourth property of fertile soil is to create optimal acid-base conditions for plants. Acid-alkaline conditions depend on the content of hydrogen, aluminum, iron and hydroxyl group (OH) ions in the soil. Fertile soils are considered to have a weak acidity or neutral reaction, the optimum acidity should be in the range of pH 5.5-7.0.

Our soddy-podzolic soils are highly acidic, they have a lot of hydrogen ions, even in excess, and pH = 4.0-5.1, there are many iron and aluminum ions that are toxic to plants, therefore they are considered to be of little fertility. The gardener's task is to combat the acidity of the soil. It is quite simple to reduce the acidity of the soil - you need to add lime fertilizers to the soil. Timely liming of the soil is the next mandatory step on the way to achieving high soil fertility.

In order to shift the soil pH from 4.8 to 5.5, it is necessary to add at least 1 kg / m² of any lime fertilizer to the soil, it is best if it is dolomite flour, which will destroy excess acidity and reduce the toxic content of aluminum and iron, and will provide plants with new nutrients - calcium and magnesium. The lime fertilizer will last for 4-5 years, and therefore the liming procedure will need to be repeated over and over again every 4-5 years.

The fifth property of soil fertility- provide plants with nutrients. All nutrients are divided into macronutrients - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, aluminum, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, and trace elements - boron, copper, zinc, molybdenum, cobalt, manganese, selenium and iodine. There is also a group of elements - ultramicroelements, but they are still little used in agricultural practice.

Notice board

Selling kittens Selling puppies Selling horses

Plants need all the nutrients at once. Plants absorb carbon through the leaves from the ground air layer as CO

₂… To increase the soil fertility in terms of carbon, as noted above, carbon dioxide fertilizers are used in the form of manure. Plants take oxygen from the air by breathing through the leaves. Plants take hydrogen from water, decomposing it into hydrogen, which is used in plant nutrition, and oxygen, which they release into the air, enriching the atmospheric air with oxygen.

All other macroelements and microelements of the plant are absorbed by the root cells from the soil, from the soil-absorbing complex by means of an equivalent exchange for hydrogen or OH-ion. The presence of a large and voluminous soil-absorbing complex in the soil indicates a high potential of the soil to absorb and retain nutrients for plants. It is a storehouse of soil for nutrients. Plants are mainly fed from this pantry.

Therefore, to improve the nutrient regime of soils, it is necessary to apply all mineral fertilizers in the complex, and to keep the nutrients in the soil from leaching out, it is necessary that both organic fertilizers and clay on sandy soils by clay, and lime fertilizers to create favorable conditions for plant nutrition be applied. …

There are very few nutrients in the sod-podzolic soil. The content of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, boron, copper, molybdenum, zinc, cobalt is usually low, while the content of iron, manganese, aluminum and hydrogen is very high and even toxic. Such soil cannot be considered fertile. If it lacks at least one nutrient or some element is in excess, then such soil cannot be considered fertile.

Only soil can be fertile if it contains all the nutrients available without exception and in sufficient quantity without excess or deficiency. Due to a lack or excess of a nutrient, plants will either starve or be poisoned. There is only one way out - you need to maintain all the elements in the soil in an optimal ratio and in optimal concentrations, and then it will be fertile. This is achieved through the complex introduction of all mineral macro- and micronutrient fertilizers.

The soil also has such excellent properties as absorption capacity and buffering capacity. This is the ability of the soil to absorb and smooth out sharp jumps in the concentration of one or another nutrient in the soil solution when fertilizing. The absorption capacity of fertile soils is quite sufficient to retain and retain nutrients from fertilizers without changing the concentration of the soil solution.

Therefore, all mineral fertilizers are safe to use, they cannot greatly shift the concentration of the soil solution, or be washed out of the soil due to the high absorption capacity of the soil and its buffering capacity.

Therefore, in order to increase soil fertility, one more step needs to be taken - annually apply nitrogen, phosphorus, potash, boric, copper, molybdenum, zinc and cobalt fertilizers. The need for calcium and magnesium in this case will be satisfied by liming the soil, for example, dolomite flour will provide the plants with calcium and magnesium completely for 4-5 years.

An excess of iron, manganese, aluminum and hydrogen can also be dealt with by liming the soil, because in a neutral medium, after liming, the solubility of these elements drops sharply, toxicity does not manifest itself and it is not necessary to apply these elements with fertilizers. The optimal doses of mineral fertilizers will be given below in the text.

Read the next part. Soil care: liquid phase or soil solution →

Gennady Vasyaev, associate professor,

chief specialist of the

North-West regional scientific center of the Russian Agricultural Academy

Olga Vasyaeva, amateur gardener