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Soil Fertility

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Book cover The Soils of Iran

Part of the book series: World Soils Book Series ((WSBS))

Abstract

Analysis of the trends of cultivated area, agricultural production, and water resources of Iran shows that the focus of agricultural development should be on intensification to cope with the rising demands for food of the growing population. While this may lead to more pressure on some of our soil resources , thereby threatening sustainable production and food security, it reflects the key role of soil fertility and balanced soil fertilization as one of the main concerns of agricultural sector. However, recent soil fertility evaluation of more than 20,000 soil samples has revealed that more than 50% of cultivated soils suffer from the deficiency of one or more nutrients. Furthermore, low soil organic matter content is the main limitation factor of sustainable soil fertility and production. With the introduction of chemical fertilizers some 50 years ago, their use gained popularity such that the amount of chemical fertilizers consumed by Iranian farmers exceeded three million tons in 2015. Fertilizer recommendation in Iran is mainly based on the sufficiency range approach. Fertilizer recommendation trend shows a transition from the general and regional recommendation toward the soil test recommendation along with more attention to research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Soil Science Department, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

    Najafali Karimian

  2. Soil and Water Research Institute, Meshkin Dasht, Iran

    Mohammad Mehdi Tehrani

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  1. Najafali Karimian
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  2. Mohammad Mehdi Tehrani
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Correspondence to Mohammad Mehdi Tehrani .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Soil and Water Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

    Mohammad Hassan Roozitalab

  2. Soil and Water Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

    Hamid Siadat

  3. ITC, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Abbas Farshad

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Karimian, N., Tehrani, M.M. (2018). Soil Fertility. In: Roozitalab, M., Siadat, H., Farshad, A. (eds) The Soils of Iran. World Soils Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69048-3_10

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