If the soil in your farm or garden is contaminated with chemicals, there’s a high chance that the toxic materials can be absorbed into the plants you’re growing. These chemicals are hazardous to soil health and could damage or even kill your crops. The adverse effects caused by chemicals are undeniable—lower agricultural productivity, polluted water sources, and toxic food are only a few of those. In order to provide extra nutrition to the soil, you could mistakenly be adding harmful chemicals with fertilizers, which is why you’ll want to use this brief guide to keep your garden or farm, safe and healthy.
How Does Soil Become Contaminated?
There are a number of ways that soil becomes contaminated:
- Industrial Waste: Liquid and solid waste released into the environment is a major contributing factor.
- Deforestation: Extensive tree cutting leaves the soil exposed to the elements, which in turn leaves it more susceptible to chemicals and pollutants.
- Overuse of Fertilizers and Pesticides: Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides release toxins into the soil.
- Garbage: Litter that is disposed of carelessly not only pollutes the land but can also take several years to decompose.
Which Chemicals Are Generally Present in Contaminated Soils?
Plants need, among other things, nutrients to grow, but with time, nutrients in the soil can get depleted faster than nature replenishes them. Fertilizers work by compensating this deficit by introducing extra nutrients. Unluckily, the whole amount is often not taken up by the plants and the excess amount leads to contamination. Besides this, some soils may be naturally high in lead or arsenic, or are released into the atmosphere as by-products of things like intensive farming and the mining industry.
The most common types of chemicals and pollutants found in contaminated soils are:
- Arsenic.
- Surplus Nitrogen.
- Phosphorus.
- Solvents.
- Pesticides.
- Lead.
- Other heavy metals.
Preventive Measures
You can start by having the soil tested to see if there are dangerous levels of toxic chemicals present. While it’s impossible to completely get rid of the chemicals, you can reduce their toxicity considerably. Prevention remains the most effective and cheapest way to ensure healthy soil. Try to adjust the pH of your soil to as close to neutral. Plus, shifting your focus to organic gardening and adding rich organic matter to the soil will also help negate the impact of the toxic chemicals and protect your plants.
We hope that this guide has been useful. If you’re looking to buy some high-quality equipment for your farming operation, get in touch with us at Torgerson’s Equipment at one of our dealership locations in Montana. Our team looks forward to helping with your agriculture needs!
