Collegedunia Team Content Curator
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Agriculture Soil is most suitable for farming and agriculture. Its qualities include being loamy and fertile. Soil can exist in many varieties and textures but only a few of them can be appropriate for Agricultural practices. A branch of science known as Agricultural Soil Science does the study of soil and the conditions of food and fibre production. Soil is often considered the very backbone of agriculture, and it is very valuable considering the time it requires to exist properly, so we can plant and produce different crops with a better yield and quality of plants.
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Agriculture Soil Profile
Agricultural soils have several kinds of microorganisms present in them as a part of their ecosystem, like bacteria and fungi. These organisms break down and recycle organic matter and nutrients in the soil and some bacteria like cyanobacteria perform nitrogen fixation in the soil, which helps improve the overall productivity of agricultural soil.
The quality of soil depends on various factors such as fertility, aeration, texture, etc, and hence the variety of soil can range from loam to sandy and other various kinds. The preparation of soil for agriculture is done in steps such as ploughing, levelling and manuring. Heavy use of fertilizers or other chemicals often destroys the quality of Agriculture Soil.
The section of the soil from the surface level to the bottom layer of rocks is called a soil profile.
Soil Profile
We can easily distinguish its layers by their colour and the size of their particles.
The layers of soil include Topsoil, Subsoil, Parent Rock and Bedrock.
Soil also includes Inorganic Minerals, Organic Matter, Water and Air and Living Matters Microorganisms.
Also Read: Humification
Characteristics of Agriculture Soil
There are several characteristics of soil that determine whether or not they qualify as top-notch agricultural soil.
These factors include:
- High Water capacity of holding Water
- Good Aeration
- Fertile and soft soil
- Suitable pH level (alkaline or acid content)
- Good texture or consistency
- Rich in nutrients (micro and macro)
Also Read: Soil Pollution
Formation of Agriculture Soil
- The formation of agricultural soil includes various processes such as weathering and mixing of the rock materials with organic debris generated by decayed plants, and then slow alteration by chemicals of water that seeps through the weathered rock material.
- Weathering is when the rocks are broken down into smaller particles, and this happening continuously causes the formation of agricultural soil with sediments and organic debris. Formation of just 1cm of soil takes over 500 years.
- Combined physical, chemical and biological processes including weathering of rocks under environmental conditions form agricultural soil. It is a mixture of biotic and abiotic components. It includes materials such as minerals, worms, decaying organic matter, humus, water microorganisms, and air. All of these together help to make the agricultural soil fertile and suitable for growing plants or agriculture.
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Agriculture Soil: Types
There are various kinds of soil present in the world, depending on the quality and other factors such as pH level, amount of Humus, and other organic and inorganic matter, etc. They are mentioned below.
Clay Soil: It is a heavy soil type and has a high nutrient amount.
Sandy Soil: It is warm, light and dry and also acidic and low in nutrients.
Silt Soil: It is highly fertile soil and has good moisture and it is light, it consists of medium-sized particles and is well-drained.
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Chalk Soil: Chalky, also known as lime-rich soil is heavy or sometimes light and it is made of calcium carbonate. It has a high alkaline value with a pH of 7.1-8.0. It supports the growth of the Mediterranean well.
Peat Soil: Peat soil forms with the help of wetland vegetation such as shrubs, sedges and mosses. Its formation is caused by the incomplete decay of plant material acidic and anaerobic conditions. Blueberries and other acid-loving plants love Peat Soil.
Loamy Soil: Loamy soil is an ideal agricultural soil for growing plants, It contains a combination of clay, sand and silt in equal parts.
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Agriculture Soil: Preparation
None of the soil is ideal beforehand, so it is necessary to prepare the soil before and after the cultivation. Continuous farming can make Soil fertility low. So soil contents are recovered by a lot of methods before the sowing of seeds. Agriculture soil is prepared in three steps, namely, ploughing, levelling, and manuring.
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Ploughing
The loosening and digging of soil are known as Ploughing. The soil is made loose and the nutrients deep below the soil come to the surface. Aeration of soil increases and the air gets available for roots to breathe and easily penetrate the soil. Ploughing also helps in the uprooting of weeds, integration of manure and removal of infectious insects, pathogens, etc. Ploughs of wood or iron are pulled by Bullocks or tractors. Another tool known as a hoe is used to loosen soil and uproot weeds.
Ploughing
Levelling
It helps in the even distribution of nutrients throughout the soil that is levelled after ploughing, with the help of a plank of wood or iron. Levelling also helps in water drainage and distribution since it stops the logging of water during irrigation.
Levelling
Also Read: Irrigation
Manuring
Finally, Manure is used on the soil. It helps to rejuvenate the soil with nutrients that are necessary for the proper growth of plants.
Manuring with the Removal of weeds, when regulated, can help farmers to produce a better crop.
Manuring
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Things to Remember
- Agriculture Soil is the most suitable for farming and agriculture. Its Qualities include being loamy and fertile. Soil can exist in lots of types and textures but only a few of them may be suitable for Agricultural practices. Soil is frequently considered the very backbone of agriculture.
- Agricultural soils have several types of microorganisms found in them as part of their ecosystem, like bacteria and fungi. These organisms break down and recycle organic matter that relies on nutrients within the soil and some microorganisms like cyanobacteria carry out nitrogen fixation inside the soil, which facilitates improving the general productiveness of agricultural soil.
- The suitability of soil relies upon numerous of its elements including fertility, aeration, texture, etc, and as a result, the kind of soil can vary from loam to sandy and other various types. The education of soil for agriculture is carried out in steps consisting of ploughing, levelling and manuring.
- Heavy use of fertilizers or different chemical substances frequently destroys the high-quality of Agriculture Soil.
- The phase of the soil from the surface level to the bottom layer of rocks is called a soil profile. We can effortlessly distinguish its layers through their colour and the size of their particles. The layers of soil consist of Topsoil, Subsoil, Parent Rock and Bedrock.
Read More:
Sample Questions
Ques: Which is the Best Type of Soil for Agriculture? (2 marks)
Ans: The high-quality soil for agriculture considered to be surprisingly effective for crop productiveness is loamy soil that's a mixture of silt, clay and sand. It helps in providing a couple of benefits to the crop with higher nutrient availability, water holding potential and excessive organic count for their greater growth.
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Ques: How Does Soil Recycling Take Place? (3 marks)
Ans: Soil has to be replenished in the course of sure intervals as it can lose its nutrient richness with time. When flowers grow within the soil, they use the vitamins they give inside the soil and after their life cycle, they die and decompose with the help of microorganisms. It facilitates recycling the vitamins in the soil and after some other agricultural education, the crops can soak up these nutrients and grow.
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Ques: What are the variables in soil which may change depending upon ts types? (4 marks)
Ans: The special styles of soil variables include soil texture, aeration and porosity, water content, drainage, water potential, fertility, soil biota and soil acidity or soil pH. To increase soil fertility, scientists advise compounds like Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium to the soil inside the form of manure.
Read More: Heterotrophic Bacteria
Soil porosity is likewise an essential thing to enhance its productiveness as small pores serve as reservoirs of water supply to vegetation and microorganisms in the soil, helpful in scanty rainfall days. And all through heavy rains, huge pores help in draining out the water using the insertion of drainage pipes. Porosity is a vital aspect for imparting oxygen to the roots of vegetation and other dwelling beings dwelling within the soil.
Ques: How will you outline healthy agricultural soil? (2 marks)
Ans: A wholesome soil has masses of organic interest regardless of plant cowl. It will have at least five percent organic matter, and a complicated microbiological network that always recycles elements essential for plant vitamins. Healthful soil is a vibrant, extremely good organism.
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Ques: Is it actually that agricultural soil is "depleted"? (3 marks)
Ans: I’m sure that in some areas it's far. Bad farming practices can do this. However, as a popular assertion, no, agricultural soils aren’t depleted. If they are, you may develop something, and farmers ought to develop crops to live to tell the tale. We update vitamins with fertilizer, and more and more farmers are building the soil using no-till or a few variants. We always need to be cautious not to deplete or harm the soil, and most farmers are aware of that and act as a result.
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Ques: What is the pH of agricultural soil? (1 mark)
Ans: Soil pH normally ranges from 1 to 14, the top-quality range for most agricultural vegetation is between 5.5 and 7.5.
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Ques: What are the techniques of restoring depleted soil resources? (3 marks)
Ans: Planting green covers aka green manures, mainly legumes, together with beans, and clovers. Grazing with the aid of cows, and sheep on legumes/grass. Followed by free variety chickens. Guaranteed to green up any plot of ground. Mulches. Manures. Composting in the vicinity, Sheet composting has worked wonders, mimicking a wooded area ground. It is an exertion of love. The soil is now full of existence. I have used all the above techniques, now not that my soil became strictly depleted, it had simply been subjected to fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides for decades.
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Ques: How does Forest soil, Agricultural soil, Urban soil, and Sea sand soil vary in morphology, bodily and chemical soil houses? (4 marks)
Ans: Rain wooded area soil is very thin and negative in humus as all of the nutriment is contained within the plants.
Sea sand soil is incomplete of salt so the handiest salt-tolerant flowers can grow in it.
Agricultural soil is by and large filched from grassland where deep loam and humus has been constructed over hundreds of thousands of years because of wild grazing animals and earthworm hobby.
Urban soil is normally the same as the latter in which housing has been constructed on former farmland; however, it is frequently close to a river so alluvial dust is also a gift. Greater London is a great example.
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