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Plants with deep taproots can penetrate many metres through the different soil layers to bring up nutrients from deeper in the profile. [77] Plants have fine roots that excrete organic compounds (sugars, organic acids, mucilage), slough off cells (in particular at their tip), and are easily decomposed, adding organic matter to soil, a process ...
A soil layer is a zone in the soil, approximately parallel to the soil surface, with properties different from layers above and/or below it. If at least one of these properties is the result of soil-forming processes, the layer is called a soil horizon. In the following, the term layer is used to indicate the possibility that soil-forming ...
Soil layers, from soil down to bedrock: A represents soil; B represents laterite, a regolith; C represents saprolite, a less-weathered regolith; below C is bedrock Tropical weathering (laterization) is a prolonged process of chemical weathering which produces a wide variety in the thickness, grade, chemistry and ore mineralogy of the resulting ...
The benefits of improving soil structure for the growth of plants, particularly in an agricultural setting, include: reduced erosion due to greater soil aggregate strength and decreased overland flow; improved root penetration and access to soil moisture and nutrients; improved emergence of seedlings due to reduced crusting of the surface; and ...
Freed cations can be made available to plants but are also prone to be leached from the soil, possibly making the soil less fertile. [101] Plants are able to excrete H + into the soil through the synthesis of organic acids and by that means, change the pH of the soil near the root and push cations off the colloids, thus making those available ...
The soil is considered as different from bedrock. The latter becomes soil under the influence of a series of soil-formation factors (climate, vegetation, country, relief and age). According to him, soil should be called the "daily" or outward horizons of rocks regardless of the type; they are changed naturally by the common effect of water, air ...
Besides the superposition of different plants growing on the same soil, there is a lateral impact of the higher layers on adjacent plant communities, for example, at the edges of forests and bushes. This particular vegetation structure results in the growth of certain vegetation types such as forest mantle and margin communities. [citation needed]
One example of primary succession takes place after a volcano has erupted. The lava flows into the ocean and hardens into new land. The resulting barren land is first colonized by pioneer organisms, like algae, which pave the way for later, less hardy plants, such as hardwood trees, by facilitating pedogenesis, especially through the biotic acceleration of weathering and the addition of ...