Adding manure and fertilizers
Plants need nutrients for their proper growth and being healthy. If nutrients are insufficient in the soil, farmers will not get good yield from the crop. For high yielding, farmers need to add nutrients in the soil, therefore farmers mixed manure and fertilizers with soil.
“The substances which are added to the soil in the form of nutrients for the healthy growth of plants are called manure and fertilizers.”
Due to continuous cultivation the soil become poor in nutrients. In this situation, farmers have to add manure to the fields to replenish the soil with nutrients. This process is called manuring.
Manure:
Manure is an organic substance obtained from the decomposition of plant or animal wastes. The decomposition of organic wastes is caused by some microorganisms. The use of manure improves soil texture as well as its water retaining capacity. It replenishes the soil with nutrients.
Advantages of Manure:
- Manure enhances the water holding capacity as well as fertility of the soil.
- It makes the soil porous which facilitate in exchange of gases by roots of the plants.
- Manure increases the microbes in the soil which fix the atmospheric nitrogen and change it in the form which can be absorbed easily by the plants roots.
- It restores the soil with all nutrients without harming the soil.
Fertilizers:
Fertilizers are chemical substances which are rich in a particular nutrient. These are commercially produced in factories. Examples: Urea, Ammonium Sulphate, Super Phosphate, Potash, NPK etc.
Advantages of Fertilizers:
- Fertilizers provides a particular nutrients to the plants due to which the plants attain proper growth and farmers get better yield.
- Fertilizers add a sufficient amount of nutrients needed to the plant.
- The use of fertilizer is not only easy but also cheaper than the manure.
Disadvantages Fertilizers:
- Excessive use of chemical fertilizers has made the soil less fertile.
- Chemical fertilizers cause water pollution.
- Chemical fertilizers not only affect the friend microorganisms living in the soil but also encourage plant diseases
Crop Rotation:
Cultivation of different crops alternately is called crop rotation. This practice enhances fertility the soil. Earlier, farmers in northern India used to grow legumes as fodder in one season and wheat in the next season. This helped in the replenishment of the soil with nitrogen. Legume plants have root nodules in which Rhizobium bacteria is present. They fix atmospheric nitrogen.
1 thought on “Agricultural Practices-Adding Manure and Fertilizers”