soil contains essential elements

Soil contains essential elements

Prerequisites:

Knowledge about methods to study mineral requirement in plants.   

Knowledge of essential elements and their roles in the plant body.

Basic concept about mechanism absorption of elements.

Concept:

Soil provides anchorage, air, water and minerals to the plants growing in it.

Majority of the nutrients that are essential for the growth and development of plants become available to the roots due to weathering and breakdown of rocks. These processes enrich the soil with dissolved ions and inorganic salts. Since they are derived from the rock minerals, their role in plant nutrition is referred to as mineral nutrition.

Soil consists of a wide variety of substances. Soil not only supplies minerals but also harbours nitrogen-fixing bacteria, other microbes.

Since deficiency of essential minerals affect the crop-yield, there is often a need for supplying them through fertilizers.

Both macro-nutrients (N, P, K, S, etc.) and micro-nutrients (Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, etc.) form components of fertilizers and are applied as per need