How do farmers keep reusing land?

Question

Don't the plants take up all the nutrients in the soil? They have massive crops, but they seem to keep growing, how? Or are they chemically fertilizing?

Answer 1

For biological processes to multiply and divide and continue growing it requires N,P,K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) as macronutrients along with a variety of micronutrients to continue to grow as long as they are in a pH balanced medium.  Hydroponics is a good example of growing plants in anything other than soil.  Styrofoam cubes or anything else that will give stability to the root structure along with water and a balanced nutrient solution, you can have a tomatoe, peppers, etc.    The most common crops in the midwest (Illinois, Iowa, etc) are corn, soybeans, alfalfa hay and pasture grass.  Cattle grazing on a pasture return nutrients to the soil through their manure.  Pastures usually only require some added nitrogen in the spring to stimulate root and plant growth of the grasses.  Corn which is a type of grass, also requires N,P,K to be added to the soil on a timely basis for the years corn crop.  Farmers must put back into the soil in relation to what they take off from their crop otherwise the ground will soon produce based only on the nutrients available to the root structure.  Soybeans require less P & K fertilizer and no N, as the bean plant is a legume and will "fix" its own nitrogen through its root structure.  Alfalfa is also a legume and does not require N. Most farmers today are motivated to do a good job and are stewards of the soil.  If they shortchange the soil fertility they will lose money.  Farmers use global positioning systems on their tractors, fertilizer trucks, computers monitor fertilizer and herbicide programs so they can do the best job possible.

Answer 2

If they are cropping the land correctly they are replacing everything that the crop removes from the soil. Chemical fertilizers or organic fertilizers either one can replace the nutrients used, but the organic matter must be replaced as well. Crop rotations, green manure crops, returning crop residue to the soil, and/or adding organic mulch is used to insure organic matter is restored. These things are just good farming and if not followed, there is a limit on using the land.  It doesn't take an inadequate farmer long to reach this limit and use up his land.

Answer 3

While some use fertilizers you have to realize that this is a cycle. If what you are proposing where true the Earth would have run out of minerals and vitamins a long time ago. When the crops die they start to decay and release the nutrients that they have gathered back into the soil. Next years crops will absorb those nutrients and then release them again and so on and so forth.

Answer 4

crop rotation

you can plant plants they renew fertility

Answer 5

There are many answers to your question. Fertiling replaces consumed nutrients.  Farmers ROTATE crops in their fields so the same Nutrients are not consumed from the soil over and over and the ROTATED crops are returning different nutrients to the soil.  Also farmers plow-under the organic material left in the fields after harvest time is complete. ETC........

Answer 6

Yes plants use nutrients but most farmers are good stewards of their property.  If they aren't they will see a decline in their yeilds in a matter of years.  Options include:

Crop rotation:  Different crops need differnt nutrients  If you put on crop out one season then rotate with another the nutrients have a chance to replinish them selves.

Harrow fields:  Leaving a feild without crops for a season also allow for replinishing of nutrients.

Advanced crops:  Slight gentic changes can create crops that need less of a nutrient and work more effeintly with nature.  These can be produced with Biotechnology or with seed breeding.

Fertilzers:  Whether it is chemical or organic fertilizers farmers can use them to maintain a proper nutrient balance.  Today with the advance in soil testing, GPS, and Technology we can be more accurate than ever in spreading just the right amount og fertilzer to maintain that balance.  

(remeber over fertilizing can cause as much damage as to little)

Answer 7

Fertilizers and other stuff like that...

also i work on a farm and there many different plants that you can plant in a field that actually replenish all the nutrients in the soil... i dunno how they do it but it works...also crop rotation helps

Answer 8

Yes they do fertilize and add all sorts of other chemicals.  Chemicals to enhance growing, chemicals to stop bugs and any other nasty creatures from devouring their plants or stunting thier growth.  Some crops even get intentionally killed in order to stop their growth for proper harvesting.  They add nitrogen fertilizer, as well as phosphorous based fertilzers.  The nitrogen cycle replaces some nitrogen back into the soil.  The nitrogen cycle is a naturally occuring environmental cycle but it doesn't replace everything which gets taken out of the soil as far as nitrogen.  To get away from applying expensive nitrogen based fertilizers farmers can rotate crops.  They can either plant a crop on one piece of land and then plant nothing the next growing season to allow the soil to absorb more nitrogen.  However in today's expensive agriculture practices it just isn't feasible to not plant a crop on a piece of land which you own.  What more and more farmers are doing is a different kind of crop rotation.  They plant one type of crop on a piece of land one year (like potatoes - take nitrogen out of the soil) then the next year they plant another type of crop (like canola - puts nitrogen back into the soil) on the same piece of land.  The idea is that some crops take nitrogen out of the soil and other crops put nitrogen back into the soil.  Bean crops like peas, pinto beans, lentils, chick peas (garbonzo beans), and canola all put nitrogen back into the soil.  So by the use of crop rotation between nitrogen users and nitrogen producers farmers are less likely to have to fertilize with nitrogen based fertilizers.

Answer 9

Farmers Rotate their crops and animals. It is called High Farming, a technique develope in Europe. Plants don't only take, they also  give back to the soil. You just need to know which plants do what, and what animals do what. Everything is connected and you have to sometimes be very carful not to do something you'll regret later, lol.

Animals c**p is the same. Each animal's manure fertilizes your land differently. Each different kind of c**p effects and bring different traits back into the soil. Chicken c**p has a high PH. Cows c**p breaks down easy, and makes great fertilizer for fields.

What you feed your cows lots of corn, thier c**p will have lots nitrogen. So it even depends on what you feed your cows. You usually feed cows corn only if you plan to slaughter them, becuase it makes them produce fat. That is why there is an increased amount of obese people in America, becuase our diet is mainly made up of corn and bread. Thats another story.  

If you give your crops chemical fertilizers, it will travel into the plant itself and eventual end up into your livestock, when your cows eat the plant. From there, when you sit down to eat a nice juicy beef steak at the kitchen table, your eating the chemical compounds you fertilized your crops with.

...It is much better to fertilize your crops the old way, cow S**t. It has worked for thousands of years.

Answer 10

by CHURNIN' the ground until it's gloriously growable!

and fertiliser and more glories are then added to grow many-a-tasty stuff ^_^