What causes soil compaction in orchard soil?

The growth and development of fruit trees requires a good soil environment, but in orchard management, soil compaction often occurs, causing yellowing leaves and leaf drop in various fruit trees, seriously affecting fruit tree yields and bringing serious losses to fruit growers. So what causes orchard soil compaction? Let's take a look.

1. Soil texture too clayey

When orchard soil is too clayey, the clay particles in the soil are relatively abundant, and combined with a usually shallow tillage layer, the soil has fewer capillary pores and poor aeration, water permeability and warming properties. After rain or irrigation, the pores are easily clogged, so the soil surface very easily forms a crust, which is soil compaction.

2. Insufficient organic matter content

When organic matter in the soil is not replenished in time, the low soil organic matter content leads to a deterioration in structure and affects the activity of microorganisms, thereby affecting the formation of soil aggregates and causing the soil pH to be too high or too low, resulting in soil compaction.

3. Long-term single application of chemical fertilizers

During fertilization, applying chemical fertilizers over the long term without applying organic fertilizer causes the soil organic matter content to keep declining, humus cannot be replenished, and soil compaction and cracking result. This is the main cause of orchard soil compaction. Nitrogen fertilizer can promote plant growth, phosphorus fertilizer can promote root development, and potassium fertilizer can promote increased yield, so many fruit growers blindly apply only these. This severely damages the soil aggregate structure, affects the activity of microorganisms, and hinders the formation of soil aggregates, leading to soil compaction.

4. Farming operations causing destruction of soil structure

Because during mechanical tillage, the soil aggregate structure is destroyed, and each year only a small portion of the fertilizer applied is absorbed by the fruit trees, while most of the fertilizer is fixed by the soil, causing large amounts of acid salts to accumulate and resulting in soil compaction.

5. Accumulation of harmful substances and soil erosion

In some areas, groundwater and industrial wastewater contain large amounts of toxic substances. Some fruit growers irrigate with this water over the long term, and over time, excessive accumulation of toxic substances in the soil causes soil compaction. In addition, after windstorms and heavy rain, fine soil particles in the topsoil are carried away, damaging the soil structure and causing soil compaction.

  The above is an introduction to how orchard soil compaction is caused. We hope it helps you. To learn more related knowledge, please follow us.