Soil fertility indicators for the cotton-growing region of the Lower Namoi Valley

Date Issued:2000-08-16

Abstract

Soil fertility is the most important soil quality indicator that needs to be measured and monitored. Through human history, decline in soil quality in general, and fertility in particular (due to neglect) had led to the demise of Great Empires. Recently, soil quality and its importance has received extensive attention due to environmental concerns. Soil quality has now formed the basis for the development of sustainable agriculture, and indeed it could be used for evaluating and judging the sustainability of soil management practices and land use systems (Wang and Gong, 1998). Soil fertility can be defined as the capacity of the soil to supply nutrients and provide other physical and chemical conditions for optimal crop growth. Soil fertility, therefore, is a subset of soil quality, which defines the overall fertility and the soils capacity to sustain crop production, provide good conditions for soil organisms, imbibes and ameliorate environmental pollution and resist degradation (Larson and Pierce, 1994). The focus of tints paper is on the analysis of chemical fertility and its versatility and distribution patterns in the lower Namoi Valley. In doing so, we emphasize the basic soil(chemical) fertility and its generality and are not specific to any particular crop. The principle is, however, relevant to the dominant crops grown in the area, namely: cotton, wheat and sorghum.

Show Full Details

This item appears in the following categories