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Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality. [3] It also refers to the soil's ability to supply plant/crop nutrients in the right quantities and qualities over a sustained period of time.
The Storie index is a method of soil rating based on soil characteristics that govern the land's potential use and productivity capacity.Developed by R. Earl Storie at University of California, Berkeley in the 1930s as a method of land valuation, it is independent of other physical or economic factors that might determine the desirability of growing certain plants in a given location.
Soil quality reflects how well a soil performs the functions of maintaining biodiversity and productivity, partitioning water and solute flow, filtering and buffering, nutrient cycling, and providing support for plants and other structures. Soil management has a major impact on soil quality. Soil quality relates to soil functions. Unlike water ...
A soil test is a laboratory or in-situ analysis to determine the chemical, physical or biological characteristics of a soil. Possibly the most widely conducted soil tests are those performed to estimate the plant-available concentrations of nutrients in order to provide fertilizer recommendations in agriculture.
Digital soil mapping (DSM) in soil science, also referred to as predictive soil mapping [1] or pedometric mapping, is the computer-assisted production of digital maps of soil types and soil properties. Soil mapping, in general, involves the creation and population of spatial soil information by the use of field and laboratory observational ...
The soil texture determines the aeration, drainage, fertility, and porosity of the soil. Some soil variables of special interest to agricultural soil science are Soil texture or soil composition: Soils are composed of solid particles of various sizes. In decreasing order, these particles are sand, silt and clay. Every soil can be classified ...
About 1,000 soil subgroups are defined in the United States. [6] A soil family category is a group of soils within a subgroup and describes the physical and chemical properties which affect the response of soil to agricultural management and engineering applications. The principal characteristics used to differentiate soil families include ...
Soil texture triangle showing the USDA classification system based on grain size. For soil resources, experience has shown that a natural system approach to classification, i.e. grouping soils by their intrinsic property (soil morphology), behaviour, or genesis, results in classes that can be interpreted for many diverse uses.