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In 1978, Swiss soil biologist Dr Otto Buess wrote an essay "The Health of Soil and Plants" which largely defines the field even today. The underlying principle in the use of the term "soil health" is that soil is not just an inert, lifeless growing medium, which modern intensive farming tends to represent, rather it is a living, dynamic and ...
Soil contamination, soil pollution, or land pollution as a part of land degradation is caused by the presence of xenobiotic (human-made) chemicals or other alteration in the natural soil environment. It is typically caused by industrial activity, agricultural chemicals or improper disposal of waste .
Leaching is affected by the soil, the pesticide, and rainfall and irrigation. Leaching is most likely to happen if using a water-soluble pesticide, when the soil tends to be sandy in texture; if excessive watering occurs just after pesticide application; if the adsorption ability of the pesticide to the soil is low.
Intensive farming methods to satisfy high food demands with high crop yields and growing crops in monocultures can deplete the soil nutrients and damage the soil microbiome. These factors can affect the consistency and quality of the soil resulting in increased erosion. Surface runoff from farm fields is a type of nonpoint source pollution.
Soil microbial communities experience shifts in the diversity and composition during dehydration and rehydration cycles. [5] Soil moisture affects carbon cycling a phenomenon known as Birch effect. [6] [7] Temperature variations in soil are influenced by factors such as seasonality, environmental conditions, vegetation, and soil composition.
soil type and structure. For example, sandy soil holds little water while clay soils have high water-retention rates; the amount of water used by the plants/crops; how much nitrate is already present in the soil. [3] The level of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) in the Earth's atmosphere is increasing at a rate of 0.2 to 0.3% annually.
If so, a soil ball 12 to 14 inches in diameter and 10 or 12 inches deep would be ideal. Use a sharpshooter spade to cut the roots and form the ball of soil but do so gently and patiently.
Biological soil crusts are most often [3] composed of fungi, lichens, cyanobacteria, bryophytes, and algae in varying proportions. These organisms live in intimate association in the uppermost few millimeters of the soil surface, and are the biological basis for the formation of soil crusts.