Preface

Chapter 6 **Sustainable Management of Soil Potassium – A Crop Rotation**

Chapter 7 **Soil Acidity and Liming in Tropical Fruit Orchards 173**

Chapter 8 **Potassium Fertilization on Fruits Orchards: A Study Case**

Chapter 9 **Alternative Fertilizer Utilizing Methods for Sustaining Low**

Sarita Leonel and Luis Lessi dos Reis

Witold Grzebisz, Witold Szczepaniak, Jarosław Potarzycki and

William Natale, Danilo Eduardo Rozane, Serge-Étienne Parent and

Monrawee Fukuda, Fujio Nagumo, Satoshi Nakamura and Satoshi

**Oriented Concept 135**

Remigiusz Łukowiak

**VI** Contents

Léon Etienne Parent

**from Brazil 193**

Tobita

**Input Agriculture 225**

Soil fertility is critical for the provision of adequate food, fiber and renewable natural resources(fuel,wood etc.). In the developing world soil fertility is linked to economic well being of many farm families. Poor soils means poor harvest leading to low returns for the over 60% of the population of developing countries relying on agriculture for survival.Use of inorganic and organic fertilizers in addition to biological processes to improve the fertility of the soil requires good understanding of their practical use and management. The effect of these materials on the environment and economic returns need to be understood. There are many locally available resources that can be collected, improved and used to improve the soil fertility.

The Soil Fertility book presents nine chapters written by renowned soil fertility experts from Africa, Asia and South America. The book is divided into two sections. Section 1,Biological Processes and Integration of Inorganic and Organic Fertilizers for Soil Fertility Improvement, examines biological processes that can enhance the soil fertility. It discusses the use of both organic and inorganic fertilizers and their integration in improving soil fertility. The need to use locally available materials to enhance soil productivity especially by resource poor farmers is stressed. Within their locality resource poor farmers have abundant materials that can be transformed and usedto improve the capacity of their soils to produce more food. The second section - Improving Fertilizer Recommendation and Efficiency, looks at the-state-of-the-art in leaf sampling and analysis. Proper leaf sampling and standardized methods of analysis are important steps in providing good recommendations. Enhancing nutrient use efficiency through proper management is also discussed. Improper use of fertilizers and amendments may not result in good economic returns hence the need for effective management of these resources. This section further discusses the need for balanced nutrition to ensure good plant growth and yield. Improper use of fertilizers may have negative effect on the growth of the plant.

> **Dr. Roland N. Issaka** CSIR-Soil Research Institute Kwadaso-Kumasi Ghana

**Section 1**

**Biological Processes and Integration of**

**Improvement**

**Inorganic and Organic Fertilizers for Soil Fertility**

**Biological Processes and Integration of Inorganic and Organic Fertilizers for Soil Fertility Improvement**

**Chapter 1**

**Enhancing Soil Fertility for Cereal Crop Production**

**Through Biological Practices and the Integration of**

**Zone of Ghana**

Jean M. Sogbedji

**1. Introduction**

culture (RELC, 2005).

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53414

James M. Kombiok, Samuel Saaka J. Buah and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

**Organic and In-Organic Fertilizers in Northern Savanna**

In Ghana, it has been estimated that 60 % of the population makes their living from subsis‐ tence farming with an average of 27% living in extreme poverty (MoFA, 2002). This is be‐ cause the most dominant economic activity of the area is agriculture and once agriculture is not well developed, one of the effects is poverty. As observed by many, one of the character‐ istics of underdeveloped agriculture is the dominance of subsistence farming in these re‐ gions (MoFA, 2002, RELC 2004). The slow economic growth and high poverty level prevailing in Northern Ghana (Upper East, Upper West and the Brong-Ahafo regions) is

The most affected area in the country is Northern Ghana as it is estimated that up to 80% of the population in this part of the country is poor (Ekekpi and Kombiok, 2008). The many agricultural interventions to transform the small scale farming system and reduce poverty in northern Ghana have largely failed due to several problems such erratic rainfall and poor soils. Further analysis of the northern Ghana agricultural sector problems indicates that poor soils result in low crop yields which are negatively affecting the development of Agri‐

It is therefore not surprising that low soil fertility has always been mentioned by farmers as one of the constraints affecting cereal production in Northern Ghana (RELC, 2005). This is confirmed by the fact that low grain yields of cereals attributed to poor soils for the past dec‐

> © 2012 Kombiok et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Kombiok et al.; licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

therefore directly linked to the underdeveloped agricultural sector of the area.
