How to improve soil fertility

                                        How to improve soil fertility

Soil fertility is a ability of soil to sustain plant growth and optimize crop yield. This can be enhanced through organic and inorganic fertilizers to the soil. 

Advancing food security and environmental sustainability in farming system requires an integrated soil fertility management approach that maximize crop production while minimizing the mining soil nutrient reserves and the degradation of the physical and chemical properties of soil that can lead to land degradation, including soil erosion.

Different approaches to efficiently manage soil fertility

An integrated soil fertility management aims at maximizing the efficiency of the agronomic use of nutrients and improving crop productivity. This can be achieved through the use of grain legumes, which enhance soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation, and the application of chemical fertilizers.

Whether grown as pluses for grain, as green manure, as a pastures or as the tree components of agro-forestry systems, a key value of leguminous crops lies in their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, which helps reduce the use of commercial nitrogen fertilizer and enhances soil fertility. Nitrogen fixing legumes are the basis for5 sustainable farming systems that incorporate integrated nutrient management. Use of nitrogen-15 lends understanding of the dynamics and  interactions between various pools in agricultural systems, including nitrogen fixation by legumes and utilization of soil and fertilizers nitrogen by crops, both in sole and mixed cropping systems.

Soil Fertility can be further improved by incorporating cover crops that add organic matter to the soil, which leads to improved soil structure and promotes a healthy, fertility soil; by using green manure or growing legumes to fix nitrogen from the air through the process of biological nitrogen fixation by Micro Dose fertilizer applications, to replenish losses through plant uptake and other processes; and by minimizing losses through leaching below the crop rooting zone by improved water and nutrients application.