Lessons from a soil fertility laboratory

Abstract

A growth chamber experiment was established to demonstrate several basic principles of soil fertility to undergraduate students. Barley and field pea were grown in pots to demonstrate the effects of erosion and crop rotation on the yield potential and nitrogen response for two soils from the Brown soil zone. The results demonstrated differences in the ability of different crops to access nutrients, the effect of landscape position on nutrient availability and fertilizer response, and the ability of soil analytical tools like PRS to reveal differences in soil nutrient supplying power.