ABOUT FERTILIZER

Fertilizers are essential commodities as they add the productivity of plants. They work through providing the soil with missing elements which are then taken up by plants to make them healthier. Soil onto which fertilizers are used is that which is depleted of most of its natural minerals; and which therefore needs boosting to make it productive. Virgin land is usually very productive with high levels of minerals needed for plant growth. As plants are grown in this land however, they take up more and more of these minerals leaving the land with less. Once harvested, the minerals are gone forever. If however the plants die, they decompose and in the process the minerals return to the soil and it becomes rich once more. Fertilizers are used in cases where the plants are harvested and where this natural cycle of enriching the soil does not happen.

There are more than 20 different types of chemical compounds that are used to make fertilizers. Depending on the type of fertilizer different elements are used. Where fertilizers are required to be of great strength, they can be made up of all the different chemical elements. All fertilizers can be categorized into two: organic and inorganic. Organic fertilizers are made of natural elements such as composts, farmyard manure, fishmeal and bone-meal.

Inorganic fertilizers are also called artificial or synthetic fertilizers. They are made up of simple compounds, mostly nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. They may also contain other salts but these are the main compounds. They are also the most important for plant growth and maturity. Nitrates (nitrogen compounds) are used to make proteins and so help in the formation of leaves and stems. Since plants cannot absorb nitrogen from the air it is converted into ammonia, which is then used to make fertilizers.