Poor soils or extremely low soil fertility: What can you do?

Plant growth and crop productivity on highly weathered soils is simultaneously limited by insufficient nutrient supplies, low nutrient availability, and toxic concentrations of especially iron and aluminum. Theoretically, such soils can be improved by soil amendments and adequate nutrient application but such solutions are often too expensive.

 

Options to reduce the damage are:

if irrigation is available, such soils can be still productive because flooding reduces the toxicities and increases nutrient availability

 

Adding inorganic fertilizer

using the right cultivars; sometimes traditional varieties have a wider tolerance to the combination of abiotic stresses occurring on such soils

in upland environments fallow periods and crop rotations help to restore or maintain a limited soil fertility

add small rates of inorganic fertilizer; apart from N, P and K, sulfur and magnesium limitations can occur on such soils

 

recycling of crop residues and application of organic fertilizers is very important to maintain the limited soil fertility. Use of charcoal (or char from crop residues) as a soil amendment is a promising indigenous technology to increase soil fertility on such soils

 

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