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7 Most Important Steps to Take Care of Soil

Introduction:

The soil is a natural body. It is composed of mineral and organic matter. It is a three-phase dispersed system (solid, liquid, and gaseous phases). It is the heart of the earth.  It maintains the total earth balance and maintains a relationship between the earth, atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere. It has physical, chemical, biological properties and activities that are necessary for ambitious crop production, maintain a sustainable balance between the environmental elements, leading a healthy life. So it is very important to taking care of the soil. As human beings, we are dependent on soil, and the soil is a resource of our environment. Caring for the soil is one of our main responsibility. It is not a very hard task. Some important steps and environmentally friendly products can be used for this purpose. The capacity of a soil to produce a crop under an environment balance ecosystem can be termed as soil fertility. Caring for soil is necessary when there occurs lacking crop production and environmental balance hamper. Eight important steps to take care of soil are described below:

Soil Test:

The soil test is the primary step of soil condition improvement. Soil contains the macro and micronutrients to plant when there is any lacking of the nutrient plant show the deficiency syndrome. For example deficiency of nitrogen cause yellow leaves to plant. It is difficult for a man to measure how much nitrogen is needed to improve the soil condition. In this case, soil test provides the optimum nutrients rate that is necessary for crop production.



Addition of Fertilizer:

Soils naturally contain many nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium, and potassium. All of the nutrients allow plants to grow well. When soil nutrients are missing or in short supply, plants suffer from nutrient deficiency badly and stop growing. When the nutrient level is too low, we have to add organic and inorganic fertilizer to get a balanced condition.



Making the good soil tilth:

Good soil tilth is necessary for gaining an ambitious crop. It maintains the water holding capacity, drain condition, and aeration.  Good soil tilth can be made by adding green manure crops, compost, biofertilizer save the soil from the harmful material such as throwing polythene, plastic into the soil. Plowing of the soil help to improve aeration condition. It transfers carbon-dioxide and oxygen to soil and atmosphere.

Maintaining the soil pH:

The imbalance of soil ph can be understood when rice, barley, wheat can’t be grown well. In this case, liming material such as CaCO3, Ca(OH)2 can be added with maintaining a proper balance.

Adding humus:

Humus is the undecomposed plant and animal residues. Humus forms organic matter. If any place is overloaded with dead plant and animal residues. Then, some part of the residues can be removed and add another place wherever need it.

Avoiding Compaction :

Heavy types of machinery must be used with great caring in case of agriculture and other building purposes. Sustainable planning of a city or village may be helpful to reduce compaction rate.

Rotation of the crop :

Crop rotation is a systematic approach to deciding which type of crop to plant in a vegetable garden from one year to the next. The goals of crop rotation are to help manage organic soil fertility as well as also to help avoid or reduce problems with different soil-borne diseases and some soil-dwelling insects, such as corn rootworms.

Conclusion:

We are a part of the environment and our environment is needed for leading our existence in where the soil is the most important part of the environment. We should think about soil conditions and always try to improve their condition. Caring of the Soil starts from the earth’s surface and ending at the ground for maintaining a balanced diversity.

Author:
Sabekun Naher
Soil and Environmental Sciences
The University of Barishal,
Bangladesh.

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