Thursday, 16 February 2012

5.3 understand the use of fertiliser to increase crop yield


To increase the growth of a plant, farmers do this by the application of fertilisers to the soil and these normally take the form of nitrates or phosphates and frequently a compound of both. These compounds go down into the soil and are taken up by the root structure and then moved in the transpiration stream up t the leaf and are used ion the leaf to for the construction of –when they are nitrates will form proteins and the phosphates are involved in things like DNA and membrane structure.

The fertilisers can be divided in to 2 groups: the organic and the artificial.

The organic group are produced from animal waste on farms ant they usually take the form of cow faeces and collected by the farmer often it goes through the process decomposition and fermentation and forms a compound called slurry and this is applied to the fields and givens the crops a supply of nitrate and phosphate.

The artificial fertilisers take the form of chemicals, which are synthetically produced like potassium nitrate and ammonium nitrate. These can be brought by the farmer and applied to the field and they will form a solution and in the soil water and this will release the nitrates, which will also produce growth.  

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