Ironing out deficiency in fruit and vegetables on alkaline soils

摘要

IRON IS A commonly occurring element in soil but frequently insoluble and unavailable for uptake by roots and therefore useful in plant growth and development.Plant-unavailable iron presents one of the biggest constraints on the harvest of good quality fruit and vegetables from alkaline soils. Soils may be alkaline due to the over-liming of naturally acidic soils and the application of alkaline irrigation water. These constraints are easily lifted but the most common underlying and hard-to-cure cause of alkaline soil is calcium carbonate-rich parent rock material weathering and developing within an arid or dry environment to form so-called calcareous soils.