How To Improve Soil Structure

Are you wanting to improve your soil structure? Or perhaps you’re curious to know more about ways to amend your soil so that your farm produce will increase in quantity and quality?

This is where soil conditioners come in handy. Soil conditioners are soil amendments that improve the overall soil structure when added to the soil.

They boost the penetration of air and nutrients into the soil. Soil conditioners increase the soil’s ability to hold water and relaxes the compressed hardpan. Soil conditioners can also increase or reduce pH levels. They ensure that nutrients are well spread out on the soil.

Simply, soil conditioners are useful to improve poor soils or to rebuild soils damaged due to bad soil management.

The term “poor soils” denotes several conditions. For example, if the soil has excessive clay, has much sand, or has a high component of salt or chalk, it will be regarded as poor soil. Poor soils also include soils that have no sufficient amount of nutrients for the survival of plants.

If your soil is having any one or more of these issues, you can simply make use of soil conditions to correct the situation. This will help you have better soil and grow better plants.

What Soil Conditioner Does To The Soil

In many instances, your soil may be poor, and this is detrimental to the health and growth of your plants. So, if you want to grow healthy and quality plants, you’ll mostly need to add soil conditioners to your soil.

The commonest and most important thing that soil conditioner do is that it boosts the overall soil structure of your soil. Soil compaction affects the plants’ ability to properly take in nutrients and water. So, soil conditioners help to loosen up the soil and are also useful to increase the soil nutrients.

Another thing soil conditioner does is that it increases the soil’s cation exchange capacity. It also helps in improving the soil’s capacity to conserve water, especially in soils like sandy soils.

However, it doesn’t alter the soil texture, which refers to the amount of sand, silt, and clay in the soil.

Forms of Soil Conditioners

There are two forms of soil conditioners you can use, which are: organic and inorganic soil conditioners.

The organic conditioners are carbon-based and examples include:

Compost

Among other uses, this helps to enhance the soil’s structure and stabilizes the pH levels of the soil.

Biosolids

This is an important form of fertilizer for the soil, though controversies surround its usage.

Animal manure

Animal manure helps to give nutrients to the soil and enhance its fertility.

Peat Moss

Ever heard of ‘peat moss’? It is more suitable for acid-loving plants like blueberries. For alkaline loving plants, compost is a better alternative. Peat moss helps your soil to be more porous and more able to retain water.

Pine bark

It is very useful for mulching and it’s more lasting than other organic mulches.

Cover crops

It supplies plants with nitrogen, which is a nutrient essential for crop production. However, it is costly and may subside the moisture effects of the soil, depending on circumstances.

On the other hand, examples of inorganic soil conditioners are:

Agricultural lime

This adds calcium and magnesium to the soil. It also increases your soil’s pH.

Gypsum

This increases the sulfur and calcium content of the soil. It improves the exchange of water and air in clay soils and soils containing massive sodium

Glauconite

If you care to increase the potassium and magnesium level of your soil, you can consider glauconite. Yes, you can also use it to adjust the soil’s pH.

Vermiculite

It’s useful in potting mixes. If you also care to make your soil more porous and more able to retain water, this conditioner is very effective.

Polyacrylamides

You can use them to control erosion, increase the penetration of water and stabilize soil aggregate. Polyacrylamides also prevent soil crusting and speedifies the drying of the soil after getting wet so that activities can begin sooner on the soil.

How To Use Soil Conditioner

To effectively maximise a soil conditioner when using it, you should take note of the following:

• To properly understand any soil defects, you should conduct soil testing on that soil. Soil testing is a prerequisite to amending the soil. It’ll aid the treatment of the soil with appropriate soil conditioner products.
• You should check and read the instructions attached to the soil conditioner you’re using. The instructions will contain the nutrients composition and usage directives. This will help you not to misapply the soil conditioner.
•  Generally, you should always apply the soil conditioner on the soil before planting. This will make the soil conditioner’s nutrients grow with the plant while also creating a firm soil structure in the plant root.
•  However, if you have planted on your soil, you can still apply soil conditioner. To do this, apply the soil conditioner on the top surface of the soil. This is to ensure the safety of the plants.

Soil Conditioner Is Different From Fertilizer

Although both soil conditioner and fertilizer are used to ensure the proper growth of plants, they’re however different.

Soil conditioner does not only give nutrients to plants but also helps to keep the soil structure in proper shape. It enables plants to maximise the usage of available nutrients.

Conversely, fertilizers only give the plants nutrients, and nothing more. Synthetic fertilizers, especially, are concerned with providing nutrients to plants. However, fertilizers made from organic products can also have some effects on the soil structure.

Environmental Problems In The Use of Soil Conditioners

As emphasized, soil conditioners are the go-to if you want to grow healthy plants and get better soil. However, there are environmental downsides to the use of soil conditioners, especially if you overuse these conditioners.

For instance, the transfer of excess nutrients to waterways is common. This poses a threat to the quality of water consumption, and by extension, the environment. Also, some nutrients like nitrogen, metals, etc are not effective when used excessively and may be detrimental to the plant’s well-being.

Conclusion

You now know the importance of soil conditioners if you want to grow healthy plants and get better soil.

We also noted to you the various organic and inorganic soil conditioners, how to use soil conditioners, the difference between soil conditioners and fertilizers, as well as the environmental problems in the use of these soil amendments.

Always apply this knowledge in your agricultural endeavors!