Soil Fertility Management for Sustainable Agriculture

Description

This book focused exclusively on the management of soil organic matter. If you follow practices that build and maintain good levels of soil organic matter, you will find it easier to grow healthy and high- yielding crops. Plants can withstand droughty conditions better and won’t be as bothered by insects and diseases. By maintaining adequate levels of organic matter in soil, you have less reason to use as much commercial fertilizer, lime, and pesticides as many farmers now purchase. Soil organic matter is that important. It is clear that agriculture sustains and defines our modern lives, but it is often disruptive of natural ecosystems. This is especially true for plant communities, animal populations, soil systems, and water resources. Understanding, evaluating, and balancing detrimental and beneficial agricultural disturbances of soil and water resources are essential tasks in human efforts to sustain and improve human well-being. Such knowledge influences our emerging ethics of sustainability and responsibility to human populations and ecosystems of the future. A book like this one cannot give exact answers to problems on specific farms. In fact, we are purposely staying away from recipe-type approaches. There are just too many differences from one field to another, one farm to another, and one region to another, to warrant blanket recommendations. To make specific suggestions, it is necessary to know the details of the soil, crop, climate, machinery, human considerations, and other variable factors. Good soil management needs to be adaptive and is better achieved through education and understanding than with simple recommendations.