To effectively manage soil fertility, knowledge is needed of how a crop uses nutrients from fertilizer applied to the soil. Soil quality is a combination of biological, chemical and physical properties and is hard to assess directly because of collective and multiple functional effects. In this paper, we focus on the application of these concepts to agriculture. We define the baseline fertility...

The objective of this study was to explore the spatial variation of soil fertility quality and the influence factors of human land use and soil management practices on soil fertility quality in North China cities' urban fringe of Beijing using data for 2007 and grey relational analysis (GRA) and geographic information systems (GIS). Soil total nitrogen, available phosphorus, available potassium...

Predators often exert multi-trophic cascading effects in terrestrial ecosystems. However, how such predation may indirectly impact interactions between above- and below-ground biota is poorly understood, despite the functional importance of these interactions. Comparison of rat-free and rat-invaded offshore islands in New Zealand revealed that predation of seabirds by introduced rats reduced fo...

The differences in rhizosphere nitrification activities between high- and low- fertility soils appear to be related to differences in dissolved oxygen concentrations in the soil, implying a relationship to differences in the radial oxygen loss (ROL) of rice roots in these soils. A miniaturised Clark-type oxygen microelectrode system was used to determine rice root ROL and the rhizosphere oxygen...

Soil fertility and nutrient-related plant functional traits are in general only moderately related, hindering the progress in trait-based prediction models of vegetation patterns. Although the relationships may have been obscured by suboptimal choices in how soil fertility is expressed, there has never been a systematic investigation into the suitability of fertility measures. This study, there...

Data mining involves the systematic analysis of large data sets , and data mining in agricultural soil datasets is exciting and modern research area. The productive capacity of a soil depends on soil fertility. Achieving and maintaining appropriate levels of soil fertility, is of utmost importance if agricultural land is to remain capable of nourishing crop production. In this research, Steps f...

Chinese hickory (Carya cathayensis), a popular nut food tree species, is mainly distributed in southeastern China. A field study was carried out to investigate the effect of long-term intensive management on fertility of soils under a C. cathayensis forest. Results showed that after 26 years' intensive management, the soil organic carbon (SOC) content of the A and B horizons reduced by 19% and ...

Studying on the spatial distribution and variation characteristics of soil fertility by Application of geographical information systems (GIS) and data mining(DM), with the quantitative analysis of spatial variability of soil fertility in complexity, and provide the effective way for simulations which can be closer to the farmland soil fertility variability. At the same time, interpolation metho...

abstract nowadays, fuzzy technique is used to prepare the map in different sciences, extensively. with due attention to important role of soil fertility in modern agriculture, the preparation of soil fertility map seems to be necessary to plan for appropriate using of fertilizers for crops. this study was conducted to prepare a distinct map for evaluating soil fertility according to soil availa...

Food security in the East African Highlands is dependent upon the productivity of lands managed by smallholders who face difficult challenges in maintaining the fertility of their soils. A study was conducted to identify indicators of soil fertility status that are consistent with farmers’ perceptions of soil fertility. Physical, chemical and biological properties of soils were measured from pa...