Sustainable Soil Management Practices - Science topic

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques can be effectively utilized to predict, monitor, and mitigate antimony contamination through a combination of data analysis, modelling, and decision support systems.

Please go though this book chapter.

Perspective Chapter: Conservation and Enhancement of Soil Health for Sustainable Agriculture

Thank you @Feto Esimo Berisso for your valuable comments.

Apply the Conservation Agriculture.

Apply organic Farming.

Apply zero tillage.

Leave plants residues on soil.

Sow annual grasses before sowing the target crop

Apply non fermented animal manure three months before cultivation. Non fermented animal manure contains macrofuana that increase aeration.

Cheers

Luz G. Asio

Saleh Aljubouri

Hadeel Alsarraje

you can add gypsum to the soil as conditioner and use mole drain in sub soil 

yes RUSLE, have capability for monthly soil loss but your all factor r not monthly changeable except R (rainfall) and C (for Vegitation).

And for monthly C you can estimate C from NDVI (monthly), which give u more changes (Monthly based) than the LULC (yearly changes) based,

also u can use this link

I do not disagree with the above, other than that there is a lot of P in the oceans and we will start recycling it when the cost of mining becomes excessive.  So we will not exhaust the supply in the foreseeable future

Lolium perenne showed resistant to crude oil and good for removal of crude oil (Zhang et al. 2012) as well as metals from contaminated soils.(Jankaitė and Vasarevičius 2007). Jankaitė and Vasarevičius (2007) reported removal of  up to 94% of copper, up to 72% of lead, up to 70% of manganese, up to 90% of zinc, up to 70% of nickel, and up to 80% of chromium from the soil. http://www.lmaleidykla.lt/publ/0235-7224/2007/4/Eko_084_089.pdf

Dear Fredrick,

- If the HM are the major cations in solution, an attenuation process can be the cation exchange (provided by, e.g., clay minerals). A complete data studio about natural clays which represent a barrier to the migration of leachate contaminants is “Regadío et al. Pollution profiles and physicochemical parameters in old uncontrolled landfills. Waste Manag 2012;32:482–97”.

- Basic conditions provided by, e.g., calcite (carbonate minerals), keep the HM precipitated in forms such as of S2-, O2-, OH-, CO32- :

(1)Bellir et al., 2005. Study of the retention of heavy metals by natural material used as liners in landfills. Desalination 185, 111–119

(2) Mostbauer, P., 2003. Criteria selection for landfills: do we need a limitation on inorganic total content. Waste Management 23, 547–554).

In addition, it was seen that Cr, Cu are incorporated into crystal lattices of calcite.

Acidity should be avoided because of the dissolution of minerals (e.g., calcite) and mobilization of metals. The former would decrease the soil density, increase its porosity and, consequently, the hydraulic conductivity; which would release HM dissolved in the porewater and reduce the retention capacity of the substratum:

(1)Wong CSC, Wu SC, Duzgoren-Aydin NS, Aydin A, Wong MH. Trace metal contamination of sediments in an e-waste processing village in China. Environ Pollut 2007;145:434–42

(2) M. Regadío et al. 2013. Processes and impacts of acid discharges on a natural substratum under a landfill. Science of the Total Environment 463–464 (2013) 1049–1059

 If not possible, it could be used CaCO3 as an amendment.

Hope it helps.

Interesting project, question and approach to use research gate for this. 

I would argue for research which contributes for assessing the efficiency of land use from the point of view of sustainable development. Many policies (including those that explicity aim for SD goals) have implications for land use: protection of BioDiv, Bio fuels and use of bio based raw materials, renewable energies, organic food, etc. Is all this coherent? How can efficiency of use measured and inform decision making, while considering also non-monetary values (or alternatively improving the data base for monetarization). 

Best Klaus 

One view is that we can apply micronutrients through foliar application ,as per the requirement of different crops,irrespective of soil micronutrient status. However in this approach soil micronutrient status may go down and one need to analyze soil nutrient status at certain periodicity and take remedial measure to ensure high crop productivity. Also it may be difficulty to meet full requirements through foliar application.However it may not be justified to apply several micronutrients through soil application without  soil  testing as some micronutrients may accumulate in toxic proportions. I thank all scientists who participated in the discussion so far.

Yes, based on the content of minerals in this soil, you may advise them to make some tests for the heavy metals in your soil first and based on that, we can recommend better. I think making sustainable soil need to return the nutrients back to the soil. There are some ways to do that using resources oriented systems such as using the organic fertilizers and compost for making the soil more fertile. Another direction using the human bio solids and waste water to produce humus like products such as Terra Preta substrate, I can advice you to check the Terra Preta sanitation systems for sustainable sanitation and sustainable agriculture.

The main soil properties that affect tree growth are available soil water capacity and soil fertility. The first is mostly a factor of soil depth and texture, and the second is a factor of the minerals available in the soil. Soil pH can be an indicator of the availability of minerals and the trees' ability to absorb them. Optimal pH for most trees is around 7, but many, especially conifers can tolerate much lower. If the pH gets much above 8, trees struggle. A very good indicator of tree growth or success is leaf area index. This is a measure of the area of leaf cover versus the area of visible ground beneath them. There is an annual maximum for each tree species. As the previous question suggests, a site index is often used to characterize the productivity of a given location for trees. What I don't see in your list of variables is climate, which is another factor often included in site index. 

Thank you for your responses. 

As Dr. Ramesh mentioned, there are several soil nutrient testing kits in the world, such as Soil nutrient analyzer TRF-3, which can rapidly monitor the soil fertility status. But such data mainly used for providing indexing information, the precision is not sufficient to publish in the international peer-reviwed journals. I suppose such system can meet your needs. Good luck!

Hi Zeinab,

It depends on the availability of the amendments and the soil problems. In semi-arid mediterranean areas the main problem is low soil organic matter and hence high erodibility under cultivation. The traditional amendments are animal manure, normally from cows, but more recently pig manure is used because of the excess of this kind of residue. Its OM content is very low, though, and it is used mostly as substitute of inorganic (N) fertilizers. Other amendments with high OM content are sewage sludges, that are effective in improving soil structure in the medium term. We tested them in rehabilitation of mined soils and give very good results. In case of sodic (alkaline) soils the amendment to be used is gypsum, either mineral, or as industry residue (phosphogypsum), in order to reduce the ESP by exchange of Na by Ca in the exchange complex.

To answer your question at least two other questions would need to be addressed. First, what will that biochar be used for? The final application to a soil (biochar effects vary strongly for different soil types) is only one of many uses (please, follow the link below) and different uses require different qualities. Second, where will the biochar be used? Financial transportation costs might not always be an issue; but, to strengthen local and regional cycles (material, energy, money) the biomass should come from not too far away. So it would be best to examine the area where biochar could be of use and to look for biomass available in abundance and then to use that.

Burning vegetation, especially forest, provides ashes like CaO and MgO which neutralize Al. Unfortunately, Al neutrazitation is only temporary: a few years. This short time is due to the fact that Aluminium doesn't prepicitate in Al(OH)3 but only polymerise in Al-OH amorphous species. Amorphous Al-OH polymers depolymerize with continuing acidification caused by soil and root respiration and by nitrification. The same process happens with liming these Al-soils.