Agricultural sciences and their practices

In basic terms it can be said that agriculture is the art of sowing the earth with crops that are of benefit to human beings and we can also include animals, since the pastures that are the natural food that they consume are considered crops. In order for these crops established in the soil to have the best yields, a series of activities technically known as agronomic practices should be applied, we are sure that those who have a certain approach to rural areas, or carry out gardening activities will open them listened to.

Among the agronomic practices we have the preparation of the land, fertilization, irrigation, pest control among others of utmost importance for agricultural activity. Taking into consideration the value that each of these practices has, each of them will be described in a clear and simple way below:

- Preparation of the land: the agricultural production units are natural ecosystems that are transformed by man, within that transformation, at the time of planting the crops, the land is usually prepared with the use of machinery (tractors) and agricultural implements with which the tillage of the soil is carried out, plows are used to turn the soil and the harrows to break up the larger land at the time of turning it. It is necessary to clarify that it should not be exceeded with the use of these implements because a part of the biodiversity of the soil that develop very well in environments in the absence of oxygen is lost.

- Fertilization: fertilization is a task that is carried out with the aim of supplying nutritional elements to the soil, for this, a soil analysis must be carried out beforehand, which consists of taking a soil sample, taking it to a laboratory that has the necessary equipment and analyzing it, the results of the laboratory analysis reflect the percentage of nutrients that the soil presents, the physical characteristics such as texture and the percentage of organic matter. In future installments I will detail each of these aspects.

When the soil conditions are known, it is decided whether or not to apply fertilizers, if necessary there are synthetic fertilizers also known as agrotoxins also organic fertilizers which are products that when applied are taken advantage of by soil microorganisms and transformed into inorganic substances that are easily assimilated by plants. It is important to point out that, the nutritional elements that plants need are classified into macro and micro nutrients, as the name suggests, macros are what plants need in larger quantities, among which are Nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and Potassium (K), while micro are what the plant needs in smaller quantities, but they are also essential for plant metabolism.

- Irrigation: this activity consists of supplying water to the crops, among the functions that water fulfills in crops, apart from maintaining thermal regulation, is that the plant serves as a conductor of the nutritional elements that the soil has, the roots absorb the water from the soil that contains part of the nutritional elements present in the soil. With the advancement of technology there are different irrigation systems, among which we can find sprinkler irrigation, drip irrigation, canyon irrigation among others.

- Weed control: let's start by pointing out that the term weed was created by producers to characterize those plants that do not have a productive function in productive agricultural ecosystems, those plants are difficult to eradicate because they have very advanced adaptation mechanisms, the seeds of a weed can remain dormant (asleep) for up to more than 50 years in the soil and germinate when they have the ideal conditions of light, water and nutrients.

When referring to the impact that these plants have on crops, the first thing that is known is that they compete with crops for light, water, nutrients and space, these elements are fundamental for the photosynthesis process of plants to make their own food and of course grow and produce. Therefore, it is one of the practices that are most executed on farms, because they will always exist, you have to know how to live with them and perform efficient controls, within the controls we have the use of chemicals known as herbicides, they can also be controlled manually with any tool it that allows cutting the plant.

- Pest insect control: in agricultural ecosystems there are certain insects that can cause physical and metabolic damage to the plant, for example, there are insects that suck the sap from plants, others inoculate toxic substances and there are also others that cause mechanical damage because they cut the leaves of plants such as some species of ants. For the control of these insects it is important to identify at which time of the year they cause the most damage to the plant and thus be able to be attentive with the type of method to be used, for example, there are chemical controls with pesticides, there are controls with entomopathogenic fungi and there are also beneficial insects that can control others.

Dear readers, with each of the mentioned aspects you will realize that agriculture is complex and needs to manage the components that make up agroecosystems to achieve a balance that translates into better crop yields, I hope the information will be useful for you.