Soils: An Introduction to Soils and Plant Growth

This volume describes the formation and properties of soils necessary to appreciate soil differences. Emphasis is placed on some of the important management concerns in using soils. The book focuses on soils in arid, humid, temperate and tropical climates. It treats soils as the principal medium for all productive agriculture. The new edition features new chapters on tillage systems and fertilizer management and revised material on nutrients, soils and environmental pollution and fertility diagnosis. It also covers accepted units for soil water and chemical data in place of obsolete units. There is a more extensive discussion on allelopath, soil humus, micro-nutrients and sulphur, and calculations for various simple and complex fertilizer formulations are included. It also presents two new taxonomy units: kandic horizon and the tentative eleventh soil order, Andisols.