manures and fertilizers


However this is a very vast and one of the most discussed topics among naturalists, I will try to make it short, simple, and easy.

Manures and fertilizers are mainly related to the fertility of the soil. In simple terms, soil fertility is the ability of the soil to provide essential nutrients to the plants. This is dependent on the available essential nutrients in the soil.

Let’s take an example for better understanding 

In Pune, India soil is less in nitrogen than the average, Phosphorus is at an appropriate amount and Potassium is present in a higher amount.

Let’s imagine that we are growing a plant in Pune, the plant will take nutrients from the ground for its growth. It will show less vegetative growth but good health and fruiting based on the availability of nutrients in the soil without applying any extra nutrients. 


What if we grow plants continuously on the same land? 

All the nutrients at a particular place will start decreasing. At one point the land will become infertile and inappropriate to support plant growth. That’s why in prehistoric times people used to migrate to different places to grow their crops.

To solve this problem we started adding manures or fertilizers to the soil in a pot or in large farms.

Manures are organic and support healthy bacteria and organisms living in the soil which in return makes the soil more fertile.

In comparison, fertilizers are inorganic having a high concentration of nutrients but are mainly specific. That means fertilizer A is only rich in element A or B. But not have all the essential nutrients required by plants and also it doesn’t support the growth of healthy bacteria in the soil.

Fertilizers are targeted or have only specific components for specific requirements of the plant while manures are for the overall development of the plant.


So what is beneficial, organic manures or inorganic fertilizer?

Few people even think that we are destroying nature by using fertilizers but my opinion is different. I don’t discard this fact that the use of excess fertilizers can harm the soil health but the use of a limited amount of fertilizers with organic manures does no harm. 


I generally use both because I have to maintain soil health and get maximum yield from my plants without disturbing nature.


READ MORE: JADE PLANT CARE 


manures

Manures are organic source of plant nutrients and are of two types:

1. Bulky Organic Manure: 

Contains many essential elements in a lower amount that’s why they are required to be applied in higher amounts.

They are FYM, Green Manures, Vermicompost.


2. Concentrated organic manure: 
They contain few essential elements in higher amounts than bulky manures hence are required in a lesser amount than bulky manures.

They are oil cakes like mustard and neem cakes, bone meals.

This is the reason for applying some manures in one spoon quantity and some in larger amounts.

Aditya Abhishek has completed Bachelor Of Science in Agriculture from SDSUV, Uttarakhand. He focuses on learning and delivering knowledge on Agriculture and Home Gardening. He created Agriculture Review as a common platform for all nature enthusiast to learn better practices of agriculture, gardening & shop quality products & services.

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