Soil acidity can influence the ability of soils to support optimized cropping and plant nutrition. In your area how much of your soils are below pH 6 being acid for many plants and starting to have potential for non optimized crop nutrition. Secondly in your area how much of the soil is about pH 7.5 having potential for too much alkalinity.
no idea but major portion of cold arid ladakh might have the acidity problem
Dear Drlatief Ahmad, I think we have lost track of how much of our soils could benefit from pH adjustment. This I believe should be one of the first steps in improving the productive environment. The nutrients and the microflora is optimized at a fairly narrow pH range. Thanks for contemplating this issue the pH determination is something that is really not very difficult or expensive to determine. I bet the majority of particularly farmers in developing countries are not well acquainted with either the pH of their soil and what they could do to deal with limited environments. Sincerely, PRH
very true Dr.PRH, in our country we are making soil health card for farmers field which proves to be very beneficial for farmers. we take out the sample of their field and then do all the physio chemical analysis
In Denmark farmers are well educated and low soil pH is always treated by applying chalk. I don't think it is possible to find any farmland there pH is as low as 6.0.
When I looked at the pH map of Great Britain it would appear about one third of the areas might be too alkaline and one third too acid and about one third about neutral. Within individual fields there are wide variation potentially in pH for instance I have seen a field with about neutral pH on average with significant areas which are acid and others alkaline. This is probably a good indication of where modern GPS technologies could be employed to give precide mapping and applications only at the points of need.
Dear Anna Kot I am including a map which would support your contention of the widespread issues in Poland with low soil pH. How many of your farmers are proactively liming or testing their soil?
To Paul Reed Hepperly. If you are interested, I am attaching map from mentioned report. Maintaining soil quality could be a problem in scattered, small farmlands. I assume that only extensive farmlands supervise by well-educated farmers are tested regulary and very precisely.
Dear Anna Kot, Wonderful information that identifies the wide scope and seriousness of this issue. I think that a way forward would be performing regional strip trials in the red areas and demonstrating the response to liming. I think if the economics would be revealed it would serve as part of an educational approach. If the liming sources could provide some seed funds a win win resolution would be possible. In addition the Poland model could be used for other areas. As a test crop alfalfa would be very responsive and might be a good barometer. I believe the economic and environmental impact would be enormous and people are generally unaware of the scope and seriousness of the issues. If there is a National or regional agricultural journal a short article would open the need for discussion. By the way I do think even the large farmers and corporation are acting on the problem and issues.
Dear Doctor Ana Kot, There appears to be very major issues in Poland with soil acidity. Is there any programs focusing on teaching farmers how to address these issues and any extention and education efforts.
The attachments show about 75% of counties in Oklahoma are in need for liming. The remaining areas have some potential for alkalinity issues.
Phosphorus is particularly sensitive to pH for efficacy of application but pH can be very important also for micronutrients.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Biochemistry
- Biochemical Techniques
- Analytical Chemistry
- pH