How to Improve Soil Fertility

Regardless of the size of your garden or field plot, adding the right amount of mineral or organic nutrients at different growth stages is necessary for the fruitfulness of the garden plot. The best practice to achive this is through a yearly garden soil test which can determine the amount of available micro and macronutrients, organic matter level, soil pH, CEC (cation Exchange Capacity), and EC (Electrical Conductivity).

Collecting and analyzing soil samples in the spring or autumn every year is the best way to monitor soil fertility and choose from multiple garden inputs to maintain the desired nutrient levels in the garden soil. Such test reports sometimes also help to determine the number of nutrients to be added to the fertility program besides additives for increasing or decreasing the soil pH, such as Lime and Sulfur.

Here are some steps that can help improve soil fertility for the ultimate garden harvests;

Growers generally neglect the dynamic part of soil fertility which is organic matter.

Organic matter is a great repository of the carbon compounds in the soil. These compounds comprise living organisms, such as animals, plants, and soil microbes. Soil holds nutrients on the exchange sites of organic and clay particles. Since organic matter particles can possess five times more nutrients than clay, organic matter can enhance the nutrient pool for the continuous supply of plants.

Organic matter also increases the water-holding capacity of the soil by making it permeable for plant roots. Moreover, the essential nutrients contained in the organic matter are released slowly for longer while the plants are growing.

Compost, leaf litter, leaf mold, farm yard manure, fish meal, bone meal, and humus are different forms of organic matter.

The grower can choose between the exhaustive and restorative plants on the same garden beds or rotate the plants between different garden beds. The restorative plants will return the fertility to the soil after exhaustive plants that depleted the essential nutrients from that soil part. Otherwise, cultivating multiple plant crops in a specific garden area can also help to improve soil fertility.

Growing Leguminous & Cover Crops

Growing grain legumes will return the nitrogen to the soil through root-nodulation bacteria. It will decrease the dependency of growers on commercial chemical nitrogen.

Similarly, cover crops enhance organic matter content in the soil, which improves texture and structure by creating an ambient environment for growth. Cover crops also reduce nutrient leaching loss and make them available for sustainable plant growth.

Adding organic mulch could help preserve moisture for an extended period. Moreover, its degradability also adds nutrients to the soil underneath.

Mushroom compost, organic garden compost and composted bark fines all make great organic mulches.

Most pesticides and fertilisers are synthetically-manufactured compounds that deposit residues in the soil on breakdown.

These residues are toxic to the living organisms responsible for soil biodiversity, including fungi, bacteria, earthworms, nematodes, livestock, birds, and soil microbes.

A range of natural fertilisers derived from plants, minerals, and animal sources. Especially amino acids, blood meal, bone meals, worm casting, cottonseed meal, mushroom compost, kept meal, humic acid, horse manure, and Lime derived from the naturally existing resources. Any product containing such ingredients are slow-release fertilisers that plants need through all growing stages

Based on your soil test results, keep the soil pH between 6.0 and 7.0. This soil pH range makes the nutrients available for most plants. Any pH range sliding below 6.0 or going higher than 7.0 will compromise nutrients from the soil.

Elemental Sulphur can be added to the soil to decrease pH, and Lime to increase it. Despite holding excellent physical, chemical, and biological properties, the plants will perform robustly only if the soil pH is within the optimum range.