Soil Quality Assessment Is An Effective Tool For Evaluating Sustainability Of Soil And Crop Management Practices

Soil is the basis for the natural ecosystems and a living thing, it sustains life on Earth and works as a natural recycling facility with nutrients to the plants. However, many people do not know about the good benefits that soil gives to our lives and how humans hurt the conditions of soil with chemicals. Soil is often times mistreated due to the misconception of soil as dirt. Nevertheless, Professor Asmeret Berhe highlighted during the lecture, Soil, that soil is a place of full of life that supports living thing. The living organism depends on the conditions of soil because soil delivers nutrients to plants. For instance, improving the conditions of the soil increases the harvest of crops. Unhealthy soil will not be able to do its job as a natural recycling facility, and not be able to give a good amount of nutrients to plants to abundantly grow. Therefore, conditions of soil are very important in agriculture. Furthermore, having organic soils can conserve the amount of water used for irrigation. Soil is main supply of water to all land and plants because it holds the water for organisms. Organic soil can hold few amounts of water for a long time so it helps farmers to reduce the agricultural water consumption. Soil is very important to out lives than what we imagine and think. The global awareness of soil preservation is less significant to people than other conservation efforts like reducing the amount of plastic used, but soil preservation is very significant to our earth system. Therefore, it is very important for humans to help the Earth healthy sustain life by stop mistreating soil as dirt and treating it as a living thing that holds full of

Continous use of chemical fertilizers can affect the soil property which later cause decrease in productivity, low nutrient recovery for plants uptake which cause higher cost of production and environmental pollution ( Sarkar et al ., 1997 ).

With soil being washed away nearly 10 – 40 times faster than it is being replenished1, every single idea to avert this this crisis needs to be considered. No till farming, a method by which farmers implement a way of growing crops with minimal disturbance to the soil and the soil’s abiotic and biotic components, is a very important idea that is being employed worldwide with notable results. With food prices rising and people turning to their own backyards to grow food, the potential advantages of small scale no till can play a major role in the health and regeneration of our

Soil is the most important element for agricultural ecosystems. Healthy soil comes with beneficial microbes and insects. Unfortunately, these are often killed off by the abuse of pesticides. Healthy soil can produce strong crops that are less vulnerable to pests. Damaged soils often need strong fertilizers application to produce a high amount of crops. Soil quality can be amplified in many ways, including leaving crop remainders in the field after harvest and adding composted plant material (Union of Concerned Scientists) Compared to industrial agriculture, companies continue to damage and consume natural soil. While intensive plowing and monocrop (does not rotate) agriculture systems have caused nutrient exhaustion and soil erosion. Excessive application of fertilizers and pesticides has contaminated soils and polluted waterways (Grace Communications Foundations)

Land and soil quality is important to agriculture, but so is plant and the animal systems. The can be defined as ecosystems, and agriculture is an agroecosystem. The ecosystem links between the function of soil, water, and air. Changing concepts have been made from management of a single-resource, single species approach to making it a multiple management approach that would involve the structure, composition, and function of the entire ecosystems. Soil quality can be defined as the capacity of soil that is to function with ecosystem boundaries to sustain biological productivity that will maintain environmental quality, and promote plant and animal health (CEQ, 1993).

Conversely, natural cultivation is an advanced technology that does not harm the environment as well as the biosphere. As a matter of fact, no longer do cultivated areas contaminated, pesticide residual, emaciated and degraded. Instead, this technique assists boost biodiversity and the biosphere reserve in nature and protect the environment from antiquated farming practice. It would be the height of folly, however, not to mention some drawbacks of organic agriculture and advantages of intensive farming. For one thing, organic farming, while conventional farming is manufacturing bigger yields, cannot produce enough food to assuage the world’s appetite. For another thing, it would be rather difficult for the impoverished and underprivileged to afford high-priced products from natural farming, which, consequently, can in part limit their interests of utilizing fresh food. Meanwhile, intensive agriculture, with curtailed prices, can meet the requirements of more people. In conclusion, there is no denying that organic and intensive farming play a vital role in life. Notwithstanding, everything frequently parallels with its downsides and these methods are not an exception. Anyway, with the rational ways of exploiting these technological advances and future development in their security, hopefully all problems will be eliminated and the merits can be

Erosion removes the surface soils, containing most of the organic matter, plant nutrients, and fine soil particles, which help to retain water and nutrients in the root zone where they are available to plants. Thus it affects the productivity of plants. The remaining, the subsoil, tends to be less fertile, less absorbent and less able to retain pesticides, fertilizers, and other plant nutrients. There are over 17,000 soil types recognized worldwide. They vary widely in structure, erodibility, fertility, and ability to produce crops. A generalized soil profile for a humid, temperate climate is showed. When the natural vegetation is cleared for agriculture, soils become exposed to erosion and loss of soil fertility. The removal of the above-ground natural

In addition to reducing soil erosion, the sustainable farming practice of no-till farming results in other positive effects. No-till farming is cheaper, less time consuming, and requires less fuel as less soil has to be moved (Giere). Since no-till farming requires less fuel, it preserves air quality by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reduces farming’s dependency on non-renewable energy sources as it reduces the amount of fossil fuels used. In both of these

Currently, infrared sensing technologies have taken a pivotal role in the agricultural sector. The infrared sensors are being used to monitor specific agricultural areas by way of determining the health of soil within the area, its nutrient contents well as its hydrology. The techniques which determine the health of soil and

Although they are small microorganisms have a humungous impact in the structure of soil and plant formation. Microorganisms, which include many different fungi, bacteria, and actinomycetes, are considered the architects of the soil as they have the ability to create a strong ecosystem in the soil. Microorganisms work best in communities to develop the structures for plants. For microorganisms to thrive there has to be a diverse amount of nutrients in the soil for them to feed off of. Schulz (2013) explains, “soil aggregation is of upmost importance in controlling microbial structures and functions and plant life” (pg. 1873). Microorganisms live off of different nutrients in the soil and once they digest the different

Soil is a complicated structure made of nutrients, organic matter, fragmented rock, water, air, gases, and microorganisms (Withgott & Laposata, 2015). These organisms and nutrients play a large role in the composition of soil, therefore are fundamental to agricultural production, and indirectly an invaluable part of the New Zealand and Australia economy, as well as important in terms of social, cultural and environmental factors. Due to this, the need to sustainably manage these soils is great, to maintain its capability to support life (Withgott & Laposata, 2015). Sustainable management is defined as “managing the use, development, and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural wellbeing” (Parliamentary Council Office, n.d.). It allows for resources, such as soil, to be used in ways, which provides

The quantity of above asked nutrients in the soil should be strictly in kg/hectare as per the requirement of TERI.

Soil pollution is defined as the contamination of soil by toxic (man-made) substances such as pesticides, trash, chemicals and the improper disposal of wastes. The contamination of soil by pollution is mostly known in North America, Asia and Europe, with causes including oil spills, industrial wastes, acid rain, and road debris. The largest current source of soil pollution is agricultural fertilizers and runoff. The next largest source of soil pollution is landfills filled with byproducts and toxins. This soil pollution can have negative effects not only on people, but also the plant organisms in this soil. The purpose of this paper is to explore the causes of soil pollution in local areas as well as the effect of soil pollution on plants in that polluted soil.

Conservative tillage is the most beneficial farming practice when it comes to enhancing soil properties, as compared to conventional tillage practices. The main contributing factor in this decision of zero tillage over conventional tillage is the reduced disturbance of the soil. This reduced soil disturbance allows for the soil to better hold more water and nutrients. The quality of the soil is also greatly improved because of an increase in soil organic matter. However conservation tillage is

1. “The Effect of Different Levels of Applied Nitrogen on the growth and Yield of Rice”