The Management of Soils for Horticultural Crops

Abstract

Any operation involving the soil, whether done mechanically or by hand can be regarded as a cultivation. Traditionally tasks such as ploughing, digging, seed-bed preparations and hoeing are included as cultivations. Whatever we do to or on a soil, whether or riot in the presence of a crop, is likely to have some effect on the physical conditions of that soil. Possibly the effect is only temporary; on other occasions it may affect the physical structure for a long time. In this section some of the effects of different cultivation operations will be discussed.