Fertilizer Use and Water Quality (Classic Reprint)

Download or read book Fertilizer Use and Water Quality (Classic Reprint) written by G. Stanford and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Fertilizer Use and Water Quality This publication evaluates the role of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers in water pollution and summarizes the research on the complex relations between nutrient inputs and outputs. Available data do not often permit making valid estimates of nutrient transfer from fertilizers to ground and surface waters. A reliable basis for evaluating the effects of fertilizers on water quality requires quantitative measurements of water inputs and behavior in agricultural watershed studies that encompass appropriate ranges in climatic and management conditions. When virgin soils in the United States were first cultivated, many were rich in organic matter and plant nutrients. These soils provided far more nitrogen than the crops could use, and losses by leaching to water bodies or by denitrification to the atmosphere were large. As a result of cultivation, these natural supplies gradually diminished. By 1969, the use of almost 7 million tons of fertilizer nitrogen a year, as well as improved land use and management practices, was still not enough to compensate for the large yearly drop in the capacity of the soil to supply nitrogen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.