Soil Quality Indicators for Sustainable Crop Productivity

摘要

The term "Soil quality" is gaining popularity in the agriculture sector, especially as farmers are striving hard to sustain the crop production and maintain the soil health. But, despite its popularity, a definition of soil quality is not that easy. Many organizations like USDA-NRCS and others are investigating the ways to measure the soil quality that gives basis for explaining what soil quality really is. Doran et al. (1996) defined soil quality as "the capacity of a specific kind of soil to function within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and support human health and habitation'. The concept of soil quality emerged in the literature in the early 1990's (Doran and Safely 1997; Wienhold et al 2004) as the first official application of the term was approved by the Soil Science Society of America ad-hoc Committee on soil quality (S-581) and discussed by Karlen et al (1997).