Effect of Interactions of Silicious Components and Organic Substances on Life in Soil — A Contribution to Plant Production

Summary

There are different reasons that soil will remain the most important resource for plant production as the base for food and feedstuffs. Thereby soil fabric plays an important role. This is more often altered by the measures of man to increase the yield per unit of area.

The distribution of the solid, liquid and gaseous phase influences life in soil and depends to a great deal on the interactions between the colloidal mineral fraction and some constituents of the organic part in soil. The effect of the latter on aggregate stability is different in the case of more or less globular shaped organic polymers such as humic acids in comparison to linear polymers such as polysaccharides. Some data are given to explain the cause-and-effect relationship.

Another effect on life in soil is caused by the influence of clay minerals in order of their sorption capacity on the metabolic activity of microorganisms and consequently also on their biomass production.

Intensive plant production cannot avoid the use of pesticides. Their persistance or degradation are dependent on the content and on the properties of surface active inorganic and organic soil components.

Many problems remain unsolved whose solutions may contribute to control erosion on agricultural land or to check desertification in many regions of the continents.