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A soil scientist examining horizons within a soil profile. Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the Earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.
Agricultural soil science studies the chemical, physical, biological, and mineralogical composition of soils as they relate to agriculture. Agricultural soil scientists develop methods that will improve the use of soil and increase the production of food and fiber crops. Emphasis continues to grow on the importance of soil sustainability.
Soil is used in agriculture, where it serves as the anchor and primary nutrient base for plants. The types of soil and available moisture determine the species of plants that can be cultivated. Agricultural soil science was the primeval domain of soil knowledge, long time before the advent of pedology in the 19th century.
Soil provides raw materials for human use and impacts human health directly. The composition of human food reflects the nature of the soil in which it was grown. An example of soil as a source of raw material can be found in ancient ceramic production. The Maya ceramics showed traits inherited from soils and sediments used as raw material. [8]
The history of edaphology is not simple, as the two main alternative terms for soil science—pedology and edaphology—were initially poorly distinguished. [10] Friedrich Albert Fallou originally conceived pedology in the 19th century as a fundamental science separate from the applied science of agrology, [11] a predecessor term for edaphology, [12] a distinction retained in the current ...
One should also distinguish soil maps that display primary soil attributes, i.e. the soil attributes originally described or measured in the field, and the soil inferred attributes also called secondary soil information, i.e. the properties of the soils in the context of the soil use: soil production capacity, soil reaction to certain use, soil ...
Blue-green algae is used as a biofertilizer. A biofertilizer is a substance containing living micro-organisms which, when applied to seeds, plant surfaces, or soil, colonize the rhizosphere or the interior of the plant and promotes growth by increasing the supply or availability of primary nutrients to the host plant. [1]
Since the origin of agriculture, humans have understood that soils contain different properties which affect their ability to grow crops. [4] However, soil science did not become its own scientific discipline until the 19th century, and even then early soil scientists were broadly grouped as either "agro-chemists" or "agro-geologists" due to the enduring strong ties of soil to agriculture.