Soil-Plant Relations

Abstract

SoilsSoils as plant sitesare the natural sites for all terrestrial plants, developing roots in the soil space that anchor them in the soil, and absorbing water, oxygen and nutrients from the soil through their root system. This requires good rootability and distance to bedrock (Sect. 9.1). Furthermore, soils must be able to store sufficient plant available water (Sect. 9.2), provide enough gas exchange (Sects. 6.5and 9.3) and thermal fluxes (Sects. 6.6and 9.4), and also contain large enough quantities of available plant nutrients (Sect. 9.5). These properties are significantly determined by the thickness of the rootable soil zone. Because fertile soils are the basis for supplying a growing human population with food and because arable soils are a limited good, they must be protected from damage and destruction, in order to preservetheir fertility and to prevent famine among the population. Their capacity to produce any kind of yield is called soil fertilitySoil fertilityor productivityProductivity(Chap. 11).