Agriculture and its practices

Dear readers, in this article, we describe general aspects of agricultural activities in a summarized way, we all know that the main aim of agriculture is to the spread of crops to sustain the nutritional needs of the society; for these crops to express an optimal performance is required to implement different activities such as agronomic practices, which begin to run from that prepares the ground for planting to maintenance activities such as control of pests, weeds, fertilization among others-

In that sense, the first thing that a farmer must do before sowing any crop, is to diagnose the area on which the crop is to be sown and identify if the crops that are to be sown adapt to the climatic conditions of the place. Generally, before planting any crop, the ground is prepared with agricultural implements to loosen the soil a little, but it must always be taken into account that the use of this practice should not be exceeded because it could affect the biodiversity of the soil, or soil compaction can be generated by the use of the tractor when it is used at times when the soils are with a high percentage of humidity.

The activities that are carried out with these tools are known as soil tillage, and the tools used are usually the plow to turn the soil and dredges to crush the clods larger at the time of turn it over, in case you have a compacted soil you can use a device known as a subsoiler that delves into the ground breaking beyond the topsoil.

On the other hand, it is also important prior to the establishment of the crop to perform a soil test to determine nutrient deficiencies, and organic matter characteristics of the same, in case of any deficiency of any nutrient element of importance to the cultivation, you can set a fertilization plan that is run before sowing and after the crop is established. In this same order of ideas, in case it is necessary to fertilize there are synthetic fertilizers and organic products when applying them are assimilated by soil microorganisms and transformed into inorganic substances that are easily assimilated by plants, in terms of nutriments there are three macronutrients that plants need in large quantities to optimize your metabolism and among them are nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P) and potassium (k), of which we were to talk about in upcoming posts.

Another crucial element for the plant is the water, which allows them to stay hydrated, but there are places or periods in the year where the availability of water decreases, known as drought, thinking about it, a practice that is implemented is the irrigation consists in providing water to crops and within the role of the water in the crops apart from maintaining the thermal regulation, is that it serves as conductor of the nutritional elements that have the floor, the roots absorb water from the soil that contains some of the nutritional elements. With the advance of technology, irrigation alternatives have been created, among which are sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation, cannon irrigation among others.

In the same way, to maintain the yield, it is important to keep them healthy and that they can take full advantage of the benefits provided by the soil and the ecosystem, we mention this, because there are insect pests and plants known as weeds that can affect the good development of the plant to generate a good production. To maintain the control of these organisms in the ecosystem, pest and weed control can be established, for that it is essential to carry out periodic reviews of the cultivated areas, so the type of plant or insect present can be identified, depending on the type of plant or insect control mechanisms are established that can be chemical, biological, manual among others.

When reference is made to the impact of weeds on crops, the first thing that is known is that they compete with crops for light, water, nutrients and space, these elements are fundamental to the process of plant photosynthesis to produce their own food and, of course, grow, and produce, the seeds of a weed can remain dormant (dormant) for more than 50 years in the soil and germinate when they have the ideal conditions of light, water and nutrients. As for pest insects, these can cause physical and metabolic damage to the plant, for example, there are insects that suck the sap of plants, others inoculate toxic substances and there are also others that cause mechanical damage since they cut the leaves of plants such as some species of ants.

Dear readers, If you want to know some insects pests and weeds or weeds we invite you to review our articles published about it on our blog. On this occasion we wanted to make a count of the activities that are carried out in the agricultural sector, with the intention that all the efforts that a farmer must make to produce food are observed together, there were also environmental and ecological factors that must also be considered to have healthy and productive crops.