Explain the term Liming - Decreasing Soil Acidity
Acid soils can be managed in two ways, viz. either by growing crops suitable for particular soil pH or by treating the soils with additives which will counteract soil acidity. The former is rather risky, intensive and continuous cropping of aerable crops in humid region will aggravate soil acidity and use of acid producing fertilizers for 20 years on an acid soil (pH 5.5 to 5.6) will render the soil unproductive due to development of more acidity (pH 4.8). On the other hand, limed plots treated with the same fertilizers maintain reasonable good level of productivity. The importance of liming acid soils is to counteract the harmful effects of soil acidity and thus help in managing acid soils.