Soils

The soil is a medium for the production and growth of plants and crops. It provides an environment for plant roots to grow and absorb the water, oxygen, and nutrients essential for plant development and growth. The ability of a soil to supply important chemical nutrients or essential elements is described as soil fertility. Soils provide Anchorage for plants. Roots growing in soils support the upright stem and leaf structure of a plant. Roots of most crop plants are often found in the top foot of the soil, where air, water, and nutrients aare ideal for growth. Soils are ecosystems. Soils contain numerous organisms that interacht including plants, bacteria, fungi, insects, and invertebrates. As part of this ecosystem soils provide essential surfaces such as carbon sequestration and the sequestration of toxic chemicals. Finally, the soil is also valuable as a site for recreation and as a foundation for buildings and roadways. Unfortunatlely, human construction and recreational activities often result in changes to and destruction of soils.

So, the soil is very important because soil is the primary system from which the plant lives and absorbs water and critical nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc.  When the soil system is managed properly it can also help to maintain the moisture level needed to give the coffee plant the water it needs. This is especially important during dry spells.
If soil is well managed- in other words- if farmers make sure that their soils receive the requisite amounts of organic matter, moisture, sunlight, aeration, nutrients, vegetative cover, etc., then the soil on their farms will achieve the proper balance of physical, chemical and biological properties that helps to ensure the overall health of plants. You have to think of soil as a balanced system. If you remove more than what you put in it then the system will collapse.  That’s why Integrated Soil Fertility Management is so essential to the health of the plant.  The fertility of the soil is its capacity to provide nutrients to plants.  High fertility translates into healthy coffee plants and higher yields, that is, as long as there is enough water in the soil as well. In order for a coffee plant to produce 100 pounds of green coffee it must extract from the soil approximately 1.45 kg of nitrogen, 0.28 kg of phosphorous, and 1.74 kg of potassium.