BGE317: Biofertilizer and Renewable Energy
Ch 1. Introduction
Soil fertility and Productivity
Soil fertility:
• Soil fertility is the ability of the soil to provide nutrients for plant growths.
• Nutrients must be returned to the soil in order to maintain fertility.
• When fertility of the soil decreases, plant growth decreases.
Soil productivity:
• Soil productivity is the ability of the soil to produce a specified plant or sequences of plants
under certain management practices.
• It depends upon soil fertility, climatic conditions, organic matter content, texture, and
structure.
Difference between Soil fertility and Productivity
Soil fertility Soil Productivity
1 It is an index of available nutrient to plants. It is used to indicate crop yields.
2 Influenced by the physical, chemical and Depends upon fertility and location.
biological factors of the soil.
3 It is the function of available nutrients of the It is the function of soil fertility,
soil. management and climate.
4 All fertile soils are not productive. All productive soils are fertile.
5 It is an inherent property of the soil. It is not the inherent property of the soil.
Soil provides nutrients for plants
• Most terrestrial plants grow in soil, which provides plants with a number of benefits:
• Anchorage for mechanical support of the shoot
• Mineral nutrients and water from the soil solution
• O2 for root respiration in root tissues from air spaces between soil particles
• The services of other soil organisms
• Soils have both living and nonliving components. The living components include plant roots
as well as populations of bacteria, fungi, protists, and animals such as earthworms and
insects. The nonliving portions of the soil include rock fragments ranging in size from large
stones to clay particles 2 μm or less in diameter. Soil also contains water and dissolved
mineral nutrients, air spaces, and dead organic matter (Fig. 24.3).
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Fig. 24.3 The Complexity of Soil Soils favorable for plant growth contain both clay and larger
mineral particles, as well as water, air, and organic matter. Other organisms are also present.
• Although soils vary greatly, almost all of them have a soil profile consisting of several
horizontal layers, called horizons. Soil scientists recognize three major horizons—termed
A, B, and C—in a typical soil (Fig 24.4):
• The A horizon is the topsoil that supports the plant’s mineral nutrient needs. It
contains most of the soil’s living and dead organic matter.
• The B horizon is the subsoil, which accumulates materials from the topsoil above
it and the parent rock below.
• The C horizon is the parent rock from which the soil arises.
• Parent rock is broken down into soil particles (weathered) in two ways:
• Mechanical weathering is the physical breakdown of materials by wetting, drying,
and freezing.
• Chemical weathering is the alteration of the chemistry of the materials in the rocks
by oxidation, water, and acids.
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Fig. 24.4 A Soil Profile. The A, B, and C horizons of a soil can sometimes be seen at construction
sites such as this one in Massachusetts. The darker upper layer (the A horizon) is home to most of
the living organisms in the soil.
• The soil’s fertility (its ability to support plant growth) is determined by several factors. The
size of the soil particles in the A horizon, for example, is important in determining nutrient
retention and other soil characteristics. Mineral nutrients in the soil solution can be leached
(washed away) from the A horizon downward by rain (or irrigation) and thereby become
unavailable to plants. Tiny clay particles bind a lot of water, and mineral nutrients are not
readily leached from them, but clay particles pack tightly and leave little room for air. Large
sand particles have opposite properties; they provide plenty of air spaces but do not retain
water or nutrients. A loam is a soil that is an optimal mixture of sand, clay, and silt (mineral
particles intermediate in size between sand and clay) and thus has sufficient supplies of air,
water, and nutrients for plants.
• In addition to mineral particles, soils contain dead organic matter, largely from plants. Soil
organisms break down dead leaves and other organic materials that fall to the ground into a
substance called humus. This material is used as a food source by microbes that break down
complex organic molecules and release simpler molecules into the soil solution. Humus also
improves the texture of soil and provides air spaces that increase oxygen availability to plant
roots.
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Ion exchange makes nutrients available to plants
Fig 24.5 Cation Exchange Plants obtain mineral nutrients form the soil primarily in the form of
positive ions; potassium (K+) is the example shown here.
Nitrogen in the Environment (Sources of Nitrogen)
• Many prominent biochemical compounds in plant cells contain nitrogen. For example,
nitrogen is found in the nucleotides and amino acids that form the building blocks of nucleic
acids and proteins, respectively. Only the elements oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen are more
abundant in plants than nitrogen. Most natural and agricultural ecosystems show dramatic
gains in productivity after fertilization with inorganic nitrogen, attesting to the importance
of this element and to the fact that it is present in suboptimal amounts.
Nitrogen passes through several forms in a biogeochemical cycle
• Nitrogen is present in many forms in the biosphere. The atmosphere contains vast quantities
(about 78% by volume) of molecular nitrogen (N2). For the most part, this large reservoir of
nitrogen is not directly available to living organisms. Acquisition of nitrogen from the
atmosphere requires the breaking of an exceptionally stable triple covalent bond between
two nitrogen atoms (N≡N) to produce ammonia (NH3) or nitrate (NO3–). These reactions,
known as nitrogen fixation, occur through both industrial and natural processes.
• N2 combines with hydrogen to form ammonia under elevated temperature (about 200°C)
and high pressure (about 200 atmospheres) and in the presence of a metal catalyst (usually
iron). The extreme conditions are required to overcome the high activation energy of the
reaction. This nitrogen fixation reaction, called the Haber–Bosch process, is a starting point
for the manufacture of many industrial and agricultural products, including nitrogen
fertilizers. Worldwide industrial production of nitrogen fertilizers amounts to more than 110
million metric tons per year (11 × 1013 g y–1).
• The following natural processes fix about 190 million metric tons per year of nitrogen (Table
13.1):
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• •• Lightning. Lightning is responsible for about 8% of the nitrogen fixed by natural
processes. Lightning converts water vapor and oxygen into highly reactive hydroxyl free
radicals, free hydrogen atoms, and free oxygen atoms that attack molecular nitrogen (N 2) to
form nitric acid (HNO3). This nitric acid subsequently falls to Earth with rain.
• •• Photochemical reactions. Approximately 2% of the nitrogen fixed derives from
photochemical reactions between gaseous nitric oxide (NO) and ozone (O3) that produce
nitric acid (HNO3).
• •• Biological nitrogen fixation. The remaining 90% results from biological nitrogen fixation,
in which bacteria or cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) fix N2 into ammonia (NH3). This
ammonia dissolves in water to form ammonium (NH4+):
NH3 + H2O → NH4+ + OH–
• Once fixed into ammonia or nitrate, nitrogen enters a biogeochemical cycle and passes
through several organic or inorganic forms before it eventually returns to molecular nitrogen
(Fig. 13.1; Table 13.1). The ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3–) ions in the soil solution
that are generated through fixation or released through decomposition of soil organic matter
become the object of intense competition among plants and microorganisms. To be
competitive, plants have evolved mechanisms for scavenging these ions rapidly from the
soil solution. Under the elevated soil concentrations that occur after fertilization, the
absorption of ammonium and nitrate by the roots may exceed the capacity of a plant to
assimilate these ions, leading to their accumulation within the plant’s tissues.
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Fig 13.1 Nitrogen cycles through the atmosphere, changing from a gas to soluble ions before it is
incorporated into organic compounds in living organisms. Some of the steps involved in the nitrogen cycle
are shown.
Forms of Soil Nitrogen
• Soil nitrogen exists in three general forms: organic nitrogen compounds, ammonium (NH₄⁺)
ions and nitrate (NO₃⁻) ions.
• At any given time, 95 to 99 percent of the potentially available nitrogen in the soil is in
organic forms, either in plant and animal residues, in the relatively stable soil organic matter,
or in living soil organisms, mainly microbes such as bacteria. This nitrogen is not directly
available to plants, but some can be converted to available forms by microorganisms. A very
small amount of organic nitrogen may exist in soluble organic compounds, such as urea,
that may be slightly available to plants.
• The majority of plant-available nitrogen is in the inorganic forms NH₄⁺ and
NO₃⁻ (sometimes called mineral nitrogen). Ammonium ions bind to the soil's negatively
charged cation exchange complex (CEC) and behave much like other cations in the soil.
Nitrate ions do not bind to the soil solids because they carry negative charges, but exist
dissolved in the soil water, or precipitated as soluble salts under dry conditions.
Natural Source of Soil Nitrogen
• The nitrogen in soil that might eventually be used by plants has two sources: nitrogen-
containing minerals and the vast storehouse of nitrogen in the atmosphere. The nitrogen in
soil minerals is released as the mineral decomposes. This process is generally quite slow,
and contributes only slightly to nitrogen nutrition on most soils. On soils containing large
quantities of NH₄⁺-rich clays (either naturally occurring or developed by fixation of
NH₄⁺ added as fertilizer), however, nitrogen supplied by the mineral fraction may be
significant in some years.
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• Atmospheric nitrogen is a major source of nitrogen in soils. In the atmosphere, it exists in
the very inert N₂ form and must be converted before it becomes useful in the soil. The
quantity of nitrogen added to the soil in this manner is directly related to thunderstorm
activity, but most areas probably receive no more than 20 lb nitrogen/acre per year from this
source.
• Bacteria such as Rhizobia that infect (nodulate) the roots of, and receive much food energy
from, legume plants can fix much more nitrogen per year (some well over 100 lb
nitrogen/acre). When the quantity of nitrogen fixed by Rhizobia exceeds that needed by the
microbes themselves, it is released for use by the host legume plant. This is why well-
nodulated legumes do not often respond to additions of nitrogen fertilizer. They are already
receiving enough from the bacteria.
Summary of the Assimilation of Mineral Nitrogen
Fig. 12.19 Summary of the processes involved in the assimilation of mineral nitrogen in the leaf. Nitrate
translocated from the roots through the xylem is absorbed by a mesophyll cell via one of the nitrate–proton
symporters (NRT) into the cytoplasm. There it is reduced to nitrite via nitrate reductase (NR). Nitrite is
translocated into the stroma of the chloroplast along with a proton. In the stroma, nitrite is reduced to
ammonium via nitrite reductase (NiR) and this ammonium is converted into glutamate via the sequential
action of glutamine synthetase (GS) and glutamate synthase (GOGAT). Once again in the cytoplasm, the
glutamate is transaminated to aspartate via aspartate aminotransferase (Asp-AT). Finally, asparagine
synthetase (AS) converts aspartate into asparagine. The approximate amounts of ATP equivalents are given
above each reaction.
Factors affecting nitrogen fixation
• Arid and semiarid soils are generally N-limited and biological soil crusts can often be
important sources of N input. For this reason, it is important to understand the factors that
influence nitrogen fixation and its release in soil crusts. At given adequate soil nutrients and
alkaline pH, the major factors controlling nitrogen fixation rates are temperature, light, and
moisture.
• Other factors also influence nitrogen fixation rates such as high soil salinity, high soil
nitrogen, phosphorus deficiency and soil acidity are the environmental factors controlling
nitrogen fixation.
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