Why you must do soil testing on your farm
Soil testing helps farmers with farm specific and crop specific fertilizer application.
Through its partners across Africa Cropnuts is unlocking the benefits of soil testing to over 30,000 African smallholder farmers with rapid & affordable soil testing services and farm-specific & crop-specific fertilizer recommendations.
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Cropnuts is serving smallholder farmers in East, Southern, and West Africa through our partners such as Safaricom DigiFarm (Kenya), Agribora Kenya Limited (Kenya), OCP West Africa (Ghana), Meridian Farmers Service Unit (Malawi) among others.
Soil testing services help farmers know exactly how much fertilizer to use. It helps in accurately determining the level for each soil parameter e.g soil pH, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, etc, and quickly identifies nutrient deficiencies and toxicities in your soils. This must be the first step in the fertilizer application program, as without this essential soil chemistry information, there is no basis for developing your soil fertility management program.
In our day-to-day workings in smallholder agriculture, one of the major challenges we’ve observed is farmers are either completely unaware of farm-specific fertilizer recommendations provided by soil analysis services or are relying only on “one-size-fits-all” recommendations provided by extension services.
The current “same-fertilizer-for-all-soils” practice is a major contributor to low fertilizer use effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa.
Grow more with less
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It’s great to know that soil testing helps you know how much fertilizer to use. I have a small backyard farm, and I’m trying to make a list of what I need to do in the Spring. I’ll make sure to get the soil tested so I know what fertilizer to use.
This blog is a must-read for anyone who cares about the quality of their soil. Thanks for the valuable information!