Posted on June 14th, 2021
by Professor W. A. J. M. De Costa -Senior Professor and Chair of Crop Science Department of Crop Science, Faculty of Agriculture University of Peradeniya
Why use fertiliser on crops?
Fertilisers are used for two purposes.
One purpose is to provide essential plant nutrients that are required for crops to produce an economically-important product (i. e. food for humans, feed for animals, a variety of industrial products, etc.). Just as people require food, crops require nutrients for producing what is expected from them.
When a crop is harvested and its yield taken away, a large amount of nutrients is taken out of the system (i. e. the soil). Therefore, continuous cropping of a land leads to the depletion of nutrients in the soil. Application of fertilisers to such a soil replenishes its nutrient pool and makes continuous cropping possible. This is the second purpose of using fertilisers.