Australian Soil Fertility Manual

1

Concepts of soil fertility

and productivity

Introduction

Soil is the medium in which plants grow to feed and clothe the world. To understand soil fertility is to understand a basic need of agricultural production.

How can a landholder produce crops and pastures efficiently and competitively without fertile soil?

How can agricultural advisers help farmers and supply information without comprehending basic soil fertility?

Soil fertility is vital to a productive soil. But a fertile soil is not necessarily a productive soil. Poor drainage, weeds, insects, disease, drought and other factors may limit production even when fertility is adequate. To make a fertile soil a productive soil, we must know about other factors that may support or limit productivity and how we can change these factors to ensure that the soil is productive.

The ‘Law of the Minimum’, first discovered by a German scientist named Carl Sprengel and later promoted by the German chemist, Justus von Liebig, in 1862 is a major help in understanding soil fertility, plant growth and the need for fertilizer application. A modern interpretation of this statement is:

‘The yield of a plant is limited by a deficiency of any one essential element, even though all others are present in adequate amounts.’

It is evident from our knowledge of the many factors that affect plant growth that the implications of this fundamental statement go far beyond soil fertility and fertilizer use, applying equally well to many other factors affecting plant production.

To understand soil productivity, we must recognise existing soil-plant relationships. Certain external factors are essential for plant growth. These can be referred to as a plant’s WANTS – Water, Air, Nutrients, Temperature and Somewhere to grow. These WANTS, together with light, are required for the healthy and productive growth of all plants, and the growing plant depends on the soil, at least in part, for all these factors. Each of these factors affects plant growth and each is linked to the others.

Since air and water occupy the pore spaces in the soil, factors that affect water relationships therefore also influence soil air. In turn, moisture changes affect soil temperature. Nutrient availability is influenced by soil water balance and by soil temperature. Root growth is also influenced by soil temperature as well as by soil water and air.

Soil fertility in modern-day agriculture is a part of a dynamic, ever-changing system. Nutrients are constantly being ‘exported’ from the farm in the form of plant and animal products. Nutrients are also being lost by leaching or erosion and in gaseous forms to the atmosphere. Still some nutrients, such as phosphorus and potassium, can be tied up by certain soil clays. The decomposition of soil organic matter and soil organisms first immobilises, then releases nutrients over a period of time.

It is for these and other reasons that the addition of plant nutrients in the form of fertilizers is necessary to maintain or enhance a soil’s productive capacity-fertility – and why an understanding of the principles of soil fertility is essential to efficient agricultural production and environmental protection.

The following sections of this chapter feature soil characteristics that influence plant growth. Essential plant nutrients are also listed.

The following chapters of this manual provide facts on the essential plant nutrients to help the reader gain an understanding of their role in soil fertility and productive and sustainable agriculture, including the amounts removed in crop yields, their role in plant growth, their deficiency symptoms in some important plants, their effects on soil characteristics, their fertilizer sources and their impact on the environment.

Figure 1.1 This model shows how a plant uses water and nutrients from the soil and oxygen from the air to manufacture sugars (S), fats (F) and proteins (P). The more it can manufacture, the more food and fibre the plant can yield.

Agriculture provides assistance to nature in three ways:

• more nutrients to ensure an adequate supply for optimum yields

• control of moisture through irrigation and drainage or soil practices that improve water infiltration use

• good cultivation and agronomic practices to provide the best possible growing environment.

Essential plant nutrient elements

Sixteen chemical elements are known to be essential for the healthy growth of all plants. They are divided into non-mineral and mineral.

Non-mineral nutrients are carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) and are found in the atmosphere and water. They are used in the process of photosynthesis to produce carbohydrates in this way:

Products of photosynthesis, mainly carbohydrates, account for most of the increased bulk when plants grow and develop. Insufficient carbon dioxide, water or light will reduce plant growth. However, the amount of water used in photosynthesis is so small that plants show moisture stress long before water supply is low enough to have any adverse effect on the rate of photosynthesis. This is illustrated in Figure 1.1.

Mineral nutrients taken up by plants from the soil are shown in Table 1.1, each with its chemical symbol. The major nutrients are used in greatest quantity by plants and usually become deficient first. The micro-nutrients are required in small amounts but they are just as important as the major nutrients. Plants must have them when and where they need them.

Table 1.1 Mineral nutrients taken up by plants from soil.

Five other elements – sodium (Na), cobalt (Co), vanadium (V), nickel (Ni) and silicon (Si) – have also been shown to be essential for the growth of some plants. These five nutrients are almost never deficient in the soil and problems are more often associated with excess or toxic levels. Still other elements, such as selenium (Se), are also essential for animal nutrition and are sometimes applied to the soil as a mixture with fertilizer.

Soil texture and structure

Soil texture is dependent on how much sand, silt and clay is present. Soils are grouped into a number of textural classes, normally 11, which enables them to be clearly classified, rather than using a loose term such as a ‘light’ or ‘heavy’ soil. An example of how mechanical analysis of the soil is used to describe its texture is illustrated in Figure 1.2, where the point shown describes a soil made up of 32% clay, 17% silt and 51% sand as being a clay loam.

Aggregation of particles is the basis for soil structure. In the broadest sense it includes the size, shape and arrangement of soil particles and aggregates; the size, shape and arrangement of voids and spaces separating the particles and aggregates; and the combination of voids and aggregates into various types of structure.

A well-structured soil allows free air and water movement and good penetration of the soil by the plant root system.

The physical, chemical and biological characteristics of a soil all contribute to the formation of its structure. The presence of organic matter, soil micro-organisms, earthworms and the physical binding effects of fine roots and soil fungal organisms all play a very important role.

Good soil management helps to develop or maintain good soil structure. Soil structure is defined as the arrangement of primary particles into secondary units, or peds, with a particular size and shape. The size and shape of granules determines structure quality and integrity. The best structure is blocky and granular, with the particles aggregated, to allow for free air and water movement.

Figure 1.2 Composilion of soil textural classes. (Soil textural classes adopted in Australia – after McDorlald et al. 1990)

Soil structure has a great influence on the growth of both the roots and tops of plants. As the soil becomes more compacted, the proportion of large pore spaces decreases, root growth is impeded and production declines. The ideal soil for plant growth can be characterised as having:

• a texture in the mid-range of sand, silt and clay content and organic matter to allow air and water movement

• sufficient clay to hold soil moisture

• deep permeable subsoil with adequate fertility

• a favourable environment to enable deep root penetration to collect moisture and nutrients.

Soil texture and structure influence the amount of water growing plants can extract from the soil. Particle size is important because:

• Smaller clay particles fit more tightly together than the larger sand particles. This means that there are only small pores for air and water to occupy.

• Smaller particles have proportionately much higher surface areas than larger particles. Fine clay has about 10 000 times as much surface area as the same weight of medium-sized sand. As the surface area increases, the amount of water absorbed by the soil increases.

Sands hold little water because the large pore spaces allow water to drain freely from the soil. Clays absorb a relatively large amount of water and the small pore spaces retain it against gravitational forces, drainage and plant use. Although clay soil has a greater water-holding capacity than sandy soil, more of it is unavailable to plants than the soil moisture in sandy soils because it retains water so strongly against removal by drainage or plant use. Similarly, soils with high organic matter content can retain moisture very well.

Figure 1.3 Water relations of some soil textural classes. Approximate suitable moisture ranges for cultivation are shown by the thickened portion of the line for these soils.

Therefore, soils high in clay and organic matter hold more water and hold it more tightly than sandy soils but proportionately more of it is unavailable to plants.

A number of terms are important in describing the plant availability of soil water:

Field capacity is the amount of water remaining in a soil after gravitational flow (drainage) has stopped. It can be expressed as a percentage by weight or volume of soil.

Wilting point is the point at which gravity is no longer of any significance in moving water in the soil. At this point, water remaining in the soil is held so tightly that the forces holding it in the soil are about equal to the plant’s suction in trying to remove it. Therefore, plants are unable to remove any more of the soil water and start to wilt.

Permanent wilting point is the amount of water remaining in the soil after plants are permanently wilted. Although there is water still present in the soil, plants are unable to remove any of it.

Plant available water capacity is the difference between field capacity and wilting point. This is another important soil characteristic and it varies depending on soil texture, as shown in Figure 1.3.

Because of the variability in the available water between soils of different texture, there is no constant relationship between soil texture and water availability, as shown in Figure 1.4.

Figure 1.4 Relationship between soil texture and water availability.

Soil compaction

Fine textured soils, e.g. clays, are easily compacted. This reduces pore space, which then limits air and water movement through the soil and may aggravate rainfall run-off. Moisture stress can become a problem, even when rainfall is high, partly due to run-off and the resulting loss of effective rain, and partly because of impeded root development in compacted soils. Clays tend to be sticky when wet and form clods when they dry out. Therefore, careful consideration of moisture levels in these soils is needed before their cultivation; wet ground conditions must be avoided to prevent excessive compaction and destruction of good structural qualities.

Sandy soils are inherently prone to the effects of drought because they hold relatively little water. They are loose, less likely than clays to become compacted and are easy to cultivate under a wide range of ground conditions. However, some sandy soils containing a high level of very fine sand can be readily compacted. Medium to coarse sands may develop compacted layers at 15–25 cm deep, as a result of normal farm traffic.

Soils with a high silt content are often the most difficult to manage in terms of their structure. The very small particle size of silt means that they are very readily compacted if cultivated or subjected to too much traffic, machinery or livestock when wet.

Non-wetting sands

Some soils, known as non-wetting sands, show poor water infiltration. Such soils occur mainly in patches of various sizes, in South and Western Australia. In affected soils, moisture tends to form beads on the soil surface and penetrates into the soil very slowly, leading to difficulty establishing crops and pastures. This water repellence leads to uneven wetting patterns, resulting in patches of dry soil where crops and pastures germinate unevenly. The cause of water repellence is not completely understood, but is associated with the addition of organic matter residues from particular plant species. These residues, referred to as particulate organic matter, have water-repellent properties and contain specific waxes that are re-distributed during the summer period under the prevailing climatic conditions of heating-cooling and wetting-drying cycles.

Some of the specific problems associated with non-wetting sands include:

• patchy appearance of both newly sown and regenerating crops and pastures

• rapid build-up of some pasture insect pests, especially red-legged earth mites, on early developing host plants such as capeweed

• significant run-off and increased erosion risk from heavy summer storms, particularly on sloping sites

• difficulty in controlling sowing depth when moving from wet to dry patches of soil

• possible leaching of fertilizer from hollows where moisture levels are higher, and poor placement of fertilizer in dry patches

• delayed planting because of the need to wait for rain to adequately wet the water-repellent areas, and the resulting likelihood of reduced yield potential. Delayed planting may also increase the risk of wind erosion

• poor action of incorporated herbicides, such as trifluralin, in the dry patches.

One positive aspect of non-wetting soils is the potential reduction of moisture loss by evaporation, because of the dry mulch effect of the repellent soil surface layers.

There are a number of methods, including laboratory and field observations, that can help in the identification of soils that are susceptible to the problem.

Several means can be used to manage affected soils. The use of various furrow sowing techniques and the spreading of clay over affected areas to increase the clay content of the surface layers of the soil are the methods most commonly adopted.

Soil colloids and ionic activity

As soils are formed during the weathering processes, some minerals and organic matter are broken down to extremely small particles. Chemical changes further reduce these particles until they are too small to be seen with the naked eye. The smallest of these are known as colloids, which are plate-like in structure and crystalline in nature. In most soils, there are more clay colloids than organic colloids.

Colloids are mainly responsible for the chemical reactivity of soils.

The kind of parent material and the degree of weathering determine the kind of clay present in the soil. Since colloids are derived from these clays, their reactivity is also affected by the parent material and the amount of weathering.

Each colloid, both clay and organic, has a net negative charge, developed during its formation. This means it can attract and hold positively charged particles and repel other negatively charged particles, in much the same way as like poles of magnets repel each other. An element with an electrical charge is called an ion; those with a positive charge are called cations and their ionic form is written as shown in Table 1.2.

Table 1.2 Common soil cations and ionic forms taken up by plants.

Ions with a negative charge are known as anions and some common anions are shown in Table 1.3.

Table 1.3 Common soil anions and ionic forms taken up by plants.

Negatively charged colloids attract and hold cations. This explains why some anions, particularly nitrate-nitrogen (NO3-), are readily leached and why ammonium-nitrogen (NH4+) is retained in most soils. Therefore, nitrate is not held by the soil but remains as a free ion in the soil water and can be leached through the soil profile, particularly in sandy, free-draining soils. This is illustrated in Figure 1.5.

Cation exchange capacity

Cations held by soils can be replaced by other cations. That is, they are exchangeable. For example, calcium ions (Ca²+) can be exchanged for hydrogen ions (H-) and/or potassium ions (K+), or vice versa. The total number of exchangeable cations a soil can hold (that is, the soil’s negative charge) is called its cation exchange capacity or CEC. The higher a soil’s CEC, the harder it becomes to change factors like pH and the less leaching of both cations and anions, like nitrate-nitrogen, is likely to take place.

Figure 1.5 Cations are attracted to soil clays and organic matter; anions are repelled.

Soils differ in their capacity to hold exchangeable cations, as illustrated in Figure 1.6. The CEC depends on the amounts and kinds of clay and organic matter that are present. A high-clay soil can hold more exchangeable cations than a low-clay soil. Also, CEC increases as organic matter increases.

The CEC of a soil is expressed as cmol/kg of soil. It is numerically equal to meq/100 g. The CEC of clay minerals is usually in the range of 10–150 cmol/kg, while that of organic matter may range from 200–400 cmol/kg. The CEC of sand and sandy soils is usually below 10 cmol/kg. Therefore, the kind and amount of clay and organic matter content of a soil can greatly influence its CEC.

Where soils are highly weathered and the organic matter level is low, their CEC is also low. Where there has been less weathering and organic matter content is higher, CEC can also be quite high. Clay soils with high CEC can retain large amounts of cations against potential loss by leaching.

Sandy soils, with low CEC, retain smaller quantities of cations and this has important implications with regard to planning a fertilizer program. For example, if products such as nitrate-based fertilizers or products with high potassium contents are applied in periods of high rainfall and there is very little groundcover present, severe losses of nitrogen or potassium may occur through leaching. Under conditions such as these, fertilizer application should be split to prevent leaching and losses through erosion or surface run-off. This is particularly important in wet tropical areas, but split applications of nitrogen, in particular, to meet peak crop demands are important means of reducing losses of nutrients by leaching in a wide range of soil types and climatic conditions.

The use of nitrification or urease inhibitors may have a place in overcoming these problems; however, their use has not yet been defined in Australian agriculture.

Cation saturation, the percentage of the total CEC occupied by the major cations, is sometimes used to develop fertilizer programs. The idea is that a certain nutrient ratio or ‘balance’ is needed to ensure proper uptake for optimum yields. However, healthy, high-yielding crops and pastures can be produced in soils with a wide range of nutrient ratios and balances. There is very little detrimental effect on crop growth provided the individual nutrients are present in sufficient amounts to enable and support optimum plant growth.

Cation exchange capacity

An aid in soil management and nutrient addition

Cations are the positively charged nutrient ions and molecules: calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), sodium (Na), hydrogen (H), ammonium (NH4) and aluminium (AI).

Clay particles are the negatively charged constituents of soils. These negatively charged particles (clay) attract, hold and release positively charged nutrient particles (cations). Organic matter particles also have a negative charge to attract positively charged cations. Sand particles carry little or no charge and do not react.

Cation exchange capacity (CEC) is the soil’s capacity to hold and exchange cations. The strength of a cation’s positive charge varies, enabling one cation to replace another on a negatively charged soil particle.

Figure 1.6 A schematic illustration of cation exchange.

The concept of CEC is illustrated in Figure 1.6.

Anion retention in soil

There are two main ways in which anions are retained in soils. The first way is when protonated hydroxyl groups (OH2+) on the face of crystalline clay minerals or on oxide surfaces adsorb anions from the soil solution, as shown in this equation:

M – OH2- | A- ↔ M – OH2+A-

(where A- is the anion and M is the mineral)

This reaction is typical for anions such as chloride I Cl-) and nitrate (NO3-) and a possible scenario is shown in the example below:

M – OH2+ | NO3- ↔ M – OH2+NO3-

The second way is where anions such as orthophosphate (H2PO4-), bicarbonate (HCO3-), sulfate (SO4²-) and borate (B(OH)4-) displace a hydroxyl group from the mineral surface, in a process known as ligand exchange or specific adsorption. For phosphate, the bond will be M – O – PO3. This type of adsorption can occur irrespective of the charge on the mineral surface.

Desorption of anions from the surface of oxides (i.e. anions adsorbed in the way shown by the equation above) will occur as the concentration of the anion in the soil solution decreases. However, anions adsorbed by the mechanism of ligand exchange can only be desorbed by raising soil pH (e.g. by the use of lime) or by introducing an anion with a greater affinity for the particular metal involved.

In practical terms, this means that nitrate and chloride are quite mobile in the soil and move freely with the soil water. Under high rainfall conditions they move downwards (leach), for example as the soil water drains. Under dry conditions they can move upwards as soil water evaporates and accumulate at or near the soil surface where they can cause problems such as ‘seedling burn’. On the other hand, anions such as phosphate, which are held by ligand exchange, are resistant to leaching and do not move far from their point of application in most soils.

Sulfate (SO4²-) can be held in some soils under certain conditions. At low pH levels, positive charges can develop on the broken edges of some clays. Soils containing hydrous oxides of iron and aluminium can hold sulfate because of the development of positive charges, but this small retention is of little consequence in soils with pHw levels higher than 6.0. In arid or semi-arid regions, large quantities of sulfate can be found as gvpsum, which has accumulated in the subsoil.

Organic matter sometimes develops a positive charge and can also attract sulfate as well as other anions.

Soil organic matter

Soil organic matter consists of plant, animal and microbial residues in various stages of decay. Adequate levels benefit the soil in many ways by:

• improving physical conditions

• increasing water infiltration

• improving tilth

• decreasing erosion losses

• supplying plant nutrients

• increasing CEC.

Organic matter contains about 5% nitrogen, so it serves as a storehouse or reserve for nitrogen. Nitrogen in organic matter is present as organic compounds and not readily available for plant uptake because the process of decomposition usually occurs quite slowly. Although a soil may contain large amounts of organic matter, fertilizer nitrogen is usually needed to provide non-legume crops and grasses with an adequate supply of this important element. Plant and animal residues contain variable amounts of other plant nutrients such as phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, sulfur and micro-nutrients and, as they decompose, these nutrients become available for plant uptake.

The decomposition of organic matter releases plant nutrients, although some, particularly nitrogen and sulfur, may be temporarily tied up during the process. This is because the microbes that are responsible for the breakdown of the organic matter require nitrogen to build protein in their bodies. If the organic matter being decomposed has a high carbon:nitrogen ratio, meaning that it has low nitrogen, the organisms will use any available soil and fertilizer nitrogen.

When residues of crops such as cotton stalks and cereal straw are incorporated into the soil, additional nitrogen fertilizer should be applied if a crop is to be planted soon afterwards. Otherwise, the crop may suffer a temporary nitrogen deficiency. Eventually, the nitrogen immobilised in the bodies of the soil organisms becomes available for plant uptake as the organisms die and decay. In reduced or minimum tillage situations with the resulting build-up of residues, nitrogen fertilizer management requires extra attention until a new equilibrium is reached. Extra care should be taken to avoid a deficiency of nitrogen. At the same time, the rates used should not exceed crop needs so that the potential for leaching of nitrate-nitrogen is minimised.

In tropical areas, most soils are inherently low in organic matter because the high temperatures and rainfall speed up the decomposition process. However, research has shown that organic matter levels can be increased in these soils with good management practices. In addition, the practice of burning sugar cane trash is becoming less common and in sugar cane growing areas soil organic matter levels are showing significant improvement.

In cooler climates, decomposition of organic matter takes place more slowly and soil organic matter can be raised to quite high levels. The trend to reduced cultivation, use of adequate rates of fertilizer and other good management practices all lead to increased crop yields, which in turn lead to higher amounts of crop residues. For example, a high-yielding wheat crop will produce a similar weight of stubble as the grain yield at harvest. There is of course a large amount of root mass remaining in the soil after the crop has matured.

Crop residues help to maintain or increase organic matter levels in the soil. They benefit the physical, chemical and microbial properties of the soil and should be maintained at as high a level as possible in order to sustain the productivity and health of the soil. The important point is to keep sufficient amounts of organic matter being recycled in the soil.

Other factors affecting soil productivity

Soil depth

Soil depth can be defined as the depth of soil material that is favourable for plant root penetration. Deep, well-drained soils of good texture and structure are favourable for crop and pasture production. Plants need plenty of depth for roots to grow and obtain nutrients and water. The roots of wheat plants, for example, will penetrate to a depth of 2 m or more when soil conditions allow. Deep-rooted plants, such as lucerne, canola or cotton, may be found to a depth of 4 m or more, even in compacted soils, and possibly to a depth of 15 m in