Chapter 3

Soil Fertility Evaluation

 The proper rate of plant nutrient is
determined by knowing the nutrient
requirement of the crop and the nutrient
supplying power of soil.
 Hence, the evaluation of soil fertility becomes
important.
 Soil fertility evaluation is essential for
balanced nutrition of the crops.
Soil fertility evaluation:
Know the nutrient supplying power of soil to the crop.
Advantage of fertility evaluation:
• It helps in maintenance and improving soil
productivity.
• Soil fertility evaluation is the key for adequate and
balanced fertilization in crop production.
• Balance nutrient supply / Balanced fertilization :
It refers to the application of essential plant nutrients
in right amounts and proportions using correct methods
and time of application suited for specific soil-crop-
climatic situations.
 Techniques are commonly employed to
asses the soil fertility are
1. Soil testing
2. Analysis of tissues from plant growing on
the soil
3. Biological tests in which the growth of
higher plants or certain micro-organisms
is used as a measure of soil fertility
4. Nutrient deficiency symptoms of plant
1. Soil testing:
• Soil testing is the chemical analysis that provides a guideline
for addition of amendments or fertilizer to soils.
• The primary advantage of soil testing is determining the
nutrients status of the soil before the crop is planted as
compared to the plant analysis.

Objectives of Soil testing:

• Soil fertility evaluation for making fertilizer recommendation
• Prediction of likely crop response to applied nutrient
• Classification of soil into different fertility groups for preparing
soil fertility maps of a given area
• Assessment of the type and degree of soil related problems like
salinity, sodicity, acidity etc., and suggesting appropriate
reclamation / amelioration measures
Steps involved in soil analysis
i. Sampling
ii. preparation of samples
iii. Analytical procedure
iv. Calibration and interpretation of the results
v. Fertilizer recommendation
1. Sampling:
• Soil sampling is perhaps the most vital step for any
analysis. Because a very small fraction of the huge
soil mass of a field is used for analysis and converted
in hectare basis. So it becomes extremely important
to get a truly representative soil sample from the field.
2. Preparation of sample:
• Drying, grinding and sieving according to the need of
analytical procedure
 3. Analytical procedure:
A suitable method is one which satisfies the following
three criteria.
(i) It should be fairly rapid so that the test results can be
obtained in a reasonably short period.
(ii) It should give accurate and reproducible results of a
given Samples with least interferences during
estimation.
(iii) It should have high predictability i.e., a significant
relationship of test values with the crop performance.
 Following chemical methods are widely used for
determination of different nutrients
Nutrients Methods Merits and demerits
Total N Kjeldahl  This method is time consuming, lengthy and
method costly
 Rate of mineralization of N varies with the
soil
Organic C Walkley  This method is simple and rapid
and  Based on C:N ratio which is varied (7.7 to
Black 11.7)
method
Available Alkaline-  Extract part of organic and mineral N
N KMnO4
Conti….
Available Olsen's method  High efficiency of HCO3 ion to remove
P2O5 for alkaline P from Ca, Al and Fe
soils  Reduce the activity of Ca
 Used in slightly acidic, neutral and
alkaline soil
Bray's method  High efficiency of F ion in dissolving P
for acid soils  Useful in acidic or slightly calcareous
soils
Available NH4OAc  Higher efficiency of extraction as
K2O extratable compared to salt solution
 Inefficiency to remove part of non
exchangeable K, which is considered to
be available to some extent
Conti….
Available 0.15%  Extract water soluble S and
S CaCl2 adsorbed S
extractable
Heat soluble  Heat soluble- extract WS +
S organic S
 Time consuming and lengthy
procedure
Available DTPA  Extract complexed, chelated and
Micronut extractable adsorbed form of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu
rients
4. Calibration and interpretation of the results:
 For the calibration of the soil test data, soils are grouped in to
high, medium and low category.
 For categorization of soil, the particular nutrient are selected
and the test crop is grown with varying doses of particular
nutrient and basal dose of other nutrients.
 Plot soil test values against the percentage yield to calculate
the relationship between soil test values and per cent yield
response

Crop yield with Yield of control without

adequate nutrient - addition of particular nutrient
Percent under study
yield = x 100
Crop yield with adequate nutrient
Critical level of nutrients in soil:
SN Nutrients Category
Low Medium High
1. Alkaline KMnO4-N (kg/ha) <250 250-500 >500
2. Olsens-P2O5 (kg/ha), <28 28-56 >56
3. Neutral N NH4OAc-K2O <140 140-280 >280
4. 0.15% CaCl2 –S (mg/kg) <10 10-20 >20
5. DTPA extractable Fe (mg/kg) <5 5-10 >10
6. DTPA extractable Mn (mg/kg) <5 5-10 >10
7. DTPA extractable Zn (mg/kg) <0.5 0.5-1.0 >1.0
8. DTPA extractable Cu (mg/kg) <0.2 0.2-0.4 >0.4
9. Hot water soluble B (mg/kg) <0.1 0.1-0.5 >0.5
10. NH4OAc soluble Mo (mg/kg) <0.05 0.05-0.1 >0.1
This classification indicated that
low class of soil would respond to added
fertilizer means add 25% more fertilizer
than recommended dose.
Medium class soil may or may not
respond to added fertilizer, add
recommended dose of fertilizer.
High status soils do not respond to added
fertilizer, add 25% less recommended
dose.
2. Plant Testing:
1. Analysis of tissues from plant growing on the soil
Plant tissue analysis is the determination of the concentration of
an element in a plant sample taken from a particular portion of a crop
at a certain time or stage of morphological development.
The plant analysis has been used as a diagnostic tool or
complementary to soil testing because
(i) In many situations, the total or even the available content of an
element in soil fails to correlate with the plant tissue concentration
or the growth and yield of crop due to many reasons including the
physico chemical properties of the soils and the root growth
patterns.
(ii) On the other hand, the concentration of an element in the plant
tissue is positively correlated with the plant health. Therefore, the
plant analysis has been used as a diagnostic tool to determine the
nutritional cause of plant disorders/diseases.
 Following steps (procedure) are included in
plant analysis
i. The collection of the representative plant parts
at the specific growth stage,
ii. Washing, drying and grinding of plant tissue,
iii. Oxidation of the powdered plant samples to
solubilize the elements,
iv. Estimation of different elements,
v. Interpretation of the status of nutrients with
respect to deficiency / Sufficiency /toxicity on
the basis of known critical concentrations,
Plant analysis applications:
• Diagnosis of nutrient deficiencies, toxicities or
imbalances
•Measurement of the quantity of nutrients
removed by a crops to replace them in order to
maintain soil fertility
•Estimating overall nutritional status of the region
or soil types
•Monitoring the effectiveness of the fertilizer
practices adopted
•Estimation of nutrient levels in the diets
available to the live stock
Collection and Preparation of plant samples
1. Collect the representative plant parts at the specific growth
stage because nutrient content in plant vary with growth
stage and it reflect the nutrient concentrations at particular
growth stage.
2. Collect the recently matured fully expanded leaves just before
the onset of the reproductive stage and put in perforated
paper bags.
3. The plant samples are often contaminated with dust, dirt
and residues of the sprays, etc. so it need to be washed
first under a running tap water followed by rinsing with dilute
HCl (0.001N), distilled water and finally in deionized water.
4. The washed samples are dried in a hot air oven at 60±5°C
for a period of 48 hours and ground in a stainless steel mill to
pass through a sieve of 40/60 mesh.
Oxidation of plant material
• The main objective of oxidation is to destroy the
organic components in the plant material to release
the elements from their combinations.
• The plant materials can be oxidized by two
methods
(i) Dry ashing at a controlled high temperature
(500ºC) in a muffle furnace
(ii) Wet digestion in an acid or a mixture of two or
more acids.
i) Dry-ashing :
(a) The powdered plant materials are taken in silica crucibles and ashed in a
muffles furnace at 500ºC for 3-4 hours.
(b) Temperature is an important consideration in dry ashing because
Nitrogen and sulphur, being highly volatile, lost during dry ashing even at
500ºC and at higher temperatures(above 500ºC ) elements like K may
also be lost.
(c) The ash is dissolved in 2 ml of 6 N HCl, heated on a hot plate to near
dryness and again dissolved in 10 ml 0.01N HCl or 20% aquaregia
before making up the final volume with distilled water.
(d) These extracts may contain different amounts of insoluble materials,
mainly silica, depending upon the plant species.
(e) Keep these extracts for some time to settle down insoluble materials and
separate by filtration before estimation of different elements.
(f) All elements, except N and S, can be estimated from these extracts by
suitable techniques.
(g) The results obtained by this method are quite satisfactory and
comparable to those obtained by wet digestion procedures.
(h) Moreover, B can only be determined by dry ashing since it is volatilized
during wet digestion with di-or triacid mixtures.
ii) Wet Digestion :
Wet oxidation digestion reagents and their applicability
Sr. Reagents Applicability Remarks
1 H2SO4/HNO3 Vegetable origin Most commonly used
2 H2SO4/H2O2 Vegetable origin Not very common
3 HNO3 Biological origin Easily purified reagent,
short digestion time,
temperature 350 0C
4 H2SO4/HClO4 Biological origin Suitable only for small
samples, danger of
explosion
5 HNO3/HClO4 Protein, carbohydrate Less explosive
(no fat)
6 HNO3/ Universal (also fat) No danger with exact
HClO4/H2SO4 temperature control
Conti……
 Generally HNO3, HClO4 and H2SO4 acids are used in
wet digestion method.
 These acids are used either singly or in
combinations of two or three acids, e.g. HNO3 and
HClO4 (10:4 ratio), HClO4 and H2SO4 (4:1 ration)
and HNO3 and H2SO4 (10:1 ratio) or a triple acid is a
mixture of HNO3 HClO4 and H2SO4 (in 10:4:1 ratio)
 The powdered plant samples are dissolved in these
suitable di-acids or tri-acids mixture using hot plate
at nearly 350ºC till clear the content.
 Cool the content and add some distilled water, filter
and make desired volume.
 This filtration can be used for estimation of different
elements
Rapid tissue tests:
•Tissue tests are rapid and are essentially
qualitative.
•The nutrients are absorbed by roots and
transported to those plant parts where they are
needed.
•The concentration of cell sap is usually good
indication of how well the plant is supplied at the
time of testing.
•The plant parts, usually leaves are removed and
plant sap is extracted.
•The plant sap is usually tested for nitrate,
phosphorus and potassium by colorimetric tests.
DRIS approach
• Recently Diagnosis Recommendation Integration
System (DRIS) is suggested for fertilizer
recommendation.
• In this approach, generally plant samples are collected
from farmer's fields.
• These plant samples are analyzed for nutrient content
and they are expressed as ratios of nutrients with
others.
• The nutrients whose ratios are not optimum for high
yields are supplemented by top dressing.
• This approach is generally suitable for long duration
crops, but now a days it is being tested for short
duration crops like soybean, wheat etc. also.
3. Biological tests:
• In biological test, the growth of higher plants or
certain micro-organisms are used as a measure
of soil fertility.
• The biological methods consist of raising a crop
or a microbial culture in a field or in a soil sample
and estimating its fertility from the volume
(yield/mass) of crop or microbial count.
• These methods can used for direct estimates of
soil fertility,
• These methods are time consuming and
therefore, not well adapted to the practice of soil
testing.
1.Field tests:
(i) The field plot technique essentially measures
the crop response to nutrients.
(ii) In these tests, specific treatments are selected
and randomly assigned to an area of land
which is representative of the conditions.
(iii)Several replications are used to obtain more
reliable results and to account for variation in
soil.
(iv)Field experiments are essential in establishing
the equation used to provide fertilizer
recommendation, Maximum profitability, and
minimize environment impact of nutrient use
 2. Pot culture tests:
 The pot culture test utilizes small quantities of
soil to quantify the nutrient supplying power of
a soil.
 Selected treatments are applied to the soils
and a crop is planted and evaluated.
 Crop response to the treatments can be than
determined by measuring total plant yield and
nutrient content
3. Laboratory tests
(a) Neubauer seedling Method:
• The Neubauer seedling technique is based on the uptake of nutrient
by growing a large number of plants on a small amount of soil.
• The seedlings (plants) exhaust the available nutrient supply within
short time.
• The total nutrients removed are quantified and tables are established
to give the minimum values of nutrients available for satisfactory yield
of various crops.
(b) Microbial methods:
• In the absence of nutrients, certain microorganisms exhibit behaviour
similar to that of higher plants.
• For example, growth of Azotobacter or Aspergillus niger reflects
nutrient deficiency in the soil.
• The soil is rated from very deficient to not deficient in the respective
elements, depending on the amount of colony growth.
• In comparison with other methods that utilize higher plants,
microbiological methods are rapid, simple and require little space.
• These laboratory tests are not in common use in India.
4. Nutrient deficiency symptoms of plant
1.The plant requires seventeen essential nutrients for their
optimum growth and development.
2. It is good tool to detect deficiencies of nutrient in the field
3.When a plant nutrient is below critical concentration in plant,
it shows deficiency symptoms.
4. These symptoms are nutrient specific and show different
patterns in crops.
Limitations:
•The visual symptoms may be caused by more than one nutrient.
• Deficiency symptoms may be due to an excess quantity of
another.
• Deficiency symptoms in the field may be due to disease or insect
damage which can produce certain micronutrient deficiencies.
• Nutrient deficiency symptoms are observed only after the crop
has already suffered an irreversible loss.
Clear Deficiency indicator plants:

Plant Nutrient deficiency

Oat : Mg, Mn and Cu deficiencies
Wheat and barley : Mg, Cu and some times Mn deficiencies

Sugar beets : B and Mn deficiencies

Maize : N, P, K, Mg, Fe, Mn and Zn deficiencies
Potatoes : K, Mg and Mn deficiencies
Rape : N, P and Mg deficiencies
Brassica species : K and Mg deficiencies
grass : Fe and Mn deficiencies
Celery and : B deficiency
sunflower
Cauliflower : B and Mo deficiencies
Flax : Zn deficiency
Clear Toxicity indicator plants:

Plant Nutrient toxicity

Barley : B, Mn and Al toxicities

Cucumber : N and P excess

Sugar beets : Cu excess