Posts Tagged ‘Soil’
Slow poisoning of soils
It’s a strange world that still seems to require scientific evidence to show that synthetic fertilizers slowly poison the soil’s health though they may increase farm productivity in the short term.
One large study done by the Indore Agriculture College in 504 villages found 70 per cent soil samples deficient in sulphur and 50 per cent deficient in zinc after use of synthetic fertilizers. Read the rest of this entry »
Soil pH has declined significantly since 1980s in India & China
Image via Wikipedia
Each plant and its soil life form have a particular soil pH it is used to. It is like blood pressure in our bodies, that varies many levels even within a day. Any change can lead to complications in the organism’s metabolism. Decrease in pH modifies top soils, a major source of crop nutrients.
Soil pH declined significantly from the 1980s to 2000s in nearly all crop production areas in India and China. Average decline was between 0.13 and 0.8. Typically pH value hovers at an average of eight across most lands of the world. Read the rest of this entry »
Listen to the land breathing…
Try this sometime. Find a starry night, go outdoors, lie down with your ear to the ground on a quite piece of land, and listen to the soil respiring, beyond the sound of your own breathing.
The soil-to-air cycle of carbon dioxide or soil respiration is a major source of CO2 emission. Read the rest of this entry »
Like this:
Monsoon rains set to change pattern
In 2010, the monsoon rainfall was 29 per cent below average. Rainfall is predicted to fall in shorter, more intense bursts, over several regions in the years ahead. This will mean more powerful surface runoff and greater soil erosion. Farmers have to deal with more barren lands.
Borewells add arsenic to your rice
A tap with a trickle in a Bellary village that was severely affected by October 2009 floods.
That borewells have depleted groundwater reserves sharply since the 1980s when they were brought on a largescale is something we all know. What is not known is that borewells also increase the groundwater contamination levels and increase the threat of fluorides and arsenic.
An estimated 1000 tonnes of arsenic is pumped up by tubewells and borewells annually and added to fertile soils in many parts of the rice bowls of India. Read the rest of this entry »
