Diagnosing Sandy Soil Constraints: Nutrition (South-West)

Crop nutrition for sandy soils

Key points

• Nutrient supply is a common and important limitation to crop production in sandy soils
• Understanding the extent and severity of nutrient constraints through soil and plant analysis is the first step in working out which nutrients and how much need to be added to achieve yield potential
• Knowing your yield potential, especially if other constraints have been ameliorated, allows you to benchmark the performance of crops and consider the yield gap that might be closed
• Meeting the crop’s nitrogen (N) requirement (and other nutrients) is essential to close the yield gap and extract the most profit from soil amelioration.