Soil and plant nutrition
The inherent infertility of our farming soils has been a major limitation to crop, pasture, livestock and horticultural production.
Phosphorus deficiencies were discovered on most soils in the 1880s which revolutionised the cropping industries, as did the development of legumes to add nitrogen to soils.
Another major advance was the need for trace elements, for both plants and animals, predominantly on higher rainfall sandy soils.
Fine tuning fertilizer applications has been essential to maintain the productivity and quality of horticultural enterprises.
The following papers detail soil and plant nutrition for crops, pastures, livestock, and horticultural crops: