IMPORTANCE OF SOIL

What is soil?

• soil, the biologically active, porous medium that has developed in the uppermost layer of Earth’s crust. Soil is one of the principal substrata of life on Earth, serving as a reservoir of water and nutrients, as a medium for the filtration and breakdown of injurious wastes, and as a participant in the cycling of carbon and other elements through the global ecosystem. It has evolved through weathering processes driven by biological, climatic, geologic, and topographic influences.

Why plants are rooted into the soil?

plants are rooted into the soil. They draw energy from the sun and carbon dioxide, and oxygen, from the atmosphere. From the soil comes all of the other material with which plants build cells and life. They draw them into their vascular system via their roots.

Why soil is very important?

Example:

Soil are essential for healthy plant growth, human nutrition, and water filtration. Healthy soil supports a landscape that is more resilient to the impacts of drought, flood, or fire. Soil helps to regulate the Earth’s climate and stores more carbon than all of the world’s forests combined.

lets talk about the 4 layers of soil

• TOPSOIL
• SUBSOIL
• PARENT ROCK
• BEDROCK

LAYERS OF SOIL

TOPSOIL

–Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top 5–10 inches. It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms, and is where most of the Earth’s biological soil activity occurs.

SUBSOIL

–Subsoil is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. Like topsoil, it is composed of a variable mixture of small particles such as sand, silt and clay, but with a much lower percentage of organic matter and humus, and it has a small amount of rocks which are smaller in size mixed with it.

PARENT ROCK

–Parent rock can be sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic. In the context of metamorphic rocks, the parent rock (or protolith) is the original rock before metamorphism occurred.

BEDROCK

–In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet.

Why this four layers of soil is very important ?

–It determines many things like, how much water will drain through different layers of the soil profile. Water is needed to convert the minerals into clay and pass on that clay to the lower layers. Moisture and temperature affect the soil. pH (potential of hydrogen) is highly influenced by climate.