Soil management

• Strategies to reduce erosion rates:

  • Long-term Crops
  • Zero-tillage Cultivation
  • Contour Ploughing
  • Tied Ridging
  • Terracing
  • Rows of Stones
  • Windbreaks
  • Multicropping
  • Increasing Soil Organic Matter
  • Livestock Management
• Reducing erosion:

  Long-term crops

  • allow root systems to develop and bind the soil together, reducing the rate of erosion by surface run-off, windblow (acting as a barrier) and rainsplash (via interception)
• Reducing erosion:

  Row of Stones

  • surface run-off prevented by a physical barrier
  • also reduces wind blow
• Fertility - water content

  • irrigation increases water
  • build channels and ditches to drain excess water away
• Fertility - soluble materials

  • chemical or organic fertilisers
  • chemical = NPK and haber process
  • organic = manure and compost
  • Ploughing increases nitrogen processes by increasing oxygen levels, increasing nitrogen content
• Fertility - air content

  • ploughing mixes up the soil and exposes it to air which increases aerobic processes
• Fertility - dead organic matter

  • add manure or compost to the soil
  • mulching - grow a crop on the field that is ploughed into the soil to add dead organic matter
• Fertility - pH

  • add crushed lime when it is too acidic
  • add sulfur powder when it is too alkaline - very rare
• Fertility - soil biota

  • add biota especially earthworms
  • reducing pesticides allows biota to come back
  • reducing ploughing
  • adding compost for dead organic matter as food for biota
• Fertility - soil depth

  • add soil on top to increase depth
  • plant crops with shallow roots
• fertility - soil texture

  • choose a crop that like the texture at the location
  • cannot change the texture
• fertility - soil structure

  • ploughing to mix up and break up peds
  • Platy peds into crumb peds