2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Soil liming is a fairly simple and common procedure. It consists in introducing special substances into the soil to help reduce the acidity of the soil. And, by the way, for liming, you can use not only the well-known lime, but also marl, lime tuff, chalk powder, open-hearth slag, cement dust, dolomite or white flour, as well as peat or shale ash. You should not use only sodium salts for these purposes - they will quickly make the soil completely unsuitable for growing any crops. Why is liming the soil recommended, and what is the benefit of liming in general?
What is liming for?
The introduction of lime into the soil perfectly helps not only to reduce its acidity, but also to significantly increase the content of calcium with magnesium in it and a number of other, equally important and equally useful macro- and microelements. That is, in fact, liming simultaneously performs a "fertilizing" function!
Another undoubted plus from liming is its ability to make the soil looser: the soils subjected to liming perfectly absorb moisture and reliably keep it in close proximity to the soil surface, allowing plant roots to be saturated with life-giving moisture even in the hottest and driest weather. And proper moisture in combination with saturation with a wide variety of useful elements contribute to a significant acceleration of the development of soil microflora and natural fertilization of the beds available on the site. In addition, the root crops growing on these beds will not absorb toxic substances in too large quantities - in the absence of liming, the volumes of toxic compounds absorbed by them would be much greater!
The most important thing is not to simultaneously fertilize the soil with manure in the process of liming the soil, because this will inevitably lead to the formation of a mixture that is insoluble and completely useless for growing crops.
Why do you need to deoxidize the soil?
Most often, liming is still resorted to in order to deoxidize the soil. It's no secret that overly acidic soils have a detrimental effect on the full development of a great variety of agricultural crops. For example, on soils characterized by high acidity, it is extremely difficult to grow good yields of legumes, corn, cabbage or beets. And if the soil also turns out to be sandy, then the plantings will be deficient in calcium with magnesium! At the same time, on the contrary, the compounds of aluminum with manganese, which have a detrimental effect on vegetation, will begin to show increased activity!
The main features of liming
Before calculating the amount of lime required for liming a site, it is necessary not only to correctly determine the area occupied by plantings, but also to try to identify the parameters of the natural acidity of the soil on the site, as well as the mechanical composition of the soil and the main features of the crops that are planned to be grown on the site. Beets and cabbage with clover are most sensitive to the introduction of various lime fertilizers, therefore, where they grow, it is important to try to apply the full rate of lime. If we are talking about potatoes or lupines, then acidity practically does not affect them in any way, respectively, in this case there is absolutely no need to overload the soil with lime too much, that is, for these crops it is quite permissible to reduce the lime rate by one third or even two thirds.
As for the timing of liming, it is best to resort to it either in the spring, before starting to plant various crops (but no later than three weeks before planting), or with the onset of autumn, before digging up the beds (the introduced substances are not must remain on the surface). If it is planned to take dolomite flour for liming, then it can be used even in winter - in this case, it simply crumbles right over the snow cover.
And since part of the lime introduced into the soil is lost throughout the season, re-liming should be periodically carried out (and it is not at all necessary to do this annually). At the same time, for the first time, such an amount of lime should be introduced, which will completely neutralize the excess acidity of the soil, and later on, lime is added in small doses, which only contribute to maintaining the optimal content of magnesium and calcium.
Do you lime the soil on your site?
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