Another Friday has came and this week I have another interesting thing to share about to make up last week activity that being held up due to haze. In this week, the activity that been held are Soil Mixture and Land Clearing.
On the 27th September of 2019 morning, as usual we gathered at our roll-call around 6.30 a.m for our morning fitness and headed to the Agrotech assembly point for our weekly roll-call. After the recital of Surah Yasin and sang the Negaraku, UiTM Dihatiku and the Planter's Song, we had our morning talk by each Part and this week Presentative for our Part is Muhammad Nazif from class A. After the weekly roll-call has ended, we were brought to the Nursery part of Sharefarm.
Nazif gave his morning talk of Palm Oil.
The lecturer in charge, Madam Sarah briefed us about the tools and equipment that we will used for soil mixture activity. We had used topsoil, sand and organic matter and the tools for this activity are polybag, wheelbarrow, hoe and herbicide's spraying materials.
Major crops like rubber and palm oil mainly used soil mixture in plantation. Before we started our soil mixture, we need to know the ration of the plant medium which is topsoil, sand and organic matter. The ratio for each medium is 3 : 2 :1 which is topsoil : sand : organic matter.
Topsoil is the top layer of the soil which is high in organic matter and nutrients. Organic matter are used in this activity because it has higher water holding capacity and has higher cation exchange than topsoil. The advantages of organic matter is soil aggregates and give aeration. The reason why sand are used in small amount because it has low water holding capacity than topsoil and organic matter. The function of plant medium is to provide plants nutrients and water to help the growth of the roots.
Part 2 students mixing the topsoil,sand and organic matter using the hoe.
After mixing the soils, the next steps is to insert the soil in the polybag. Before inserting the soil in the polybag, we need to turn the polybag's inside upside down so that it won't fall down when being put on the ground. The amount of soil that we need to put in the polybag is 3/4 of the polybag. We labeled our polybag with our name and put it at the Nursery.
Part 2 students inserting mixtured soil in polybag.
3/4 of the polybag are filled with mixtured soil.
After we finished our soil mixture activity, we proceed to our next activity which is land clearing.
In this activity, the tools that we used are the hoe, wheelbarrow and herbicide's spraying materials. Land clearing is a process of removing trees, stumps and other obstacles from an area as required to increase the size of the crop producing landbase to of an existing farm or provide land for a new farm operation. Herbicide spraying is a method of spraying chemical liquid directly to unwanted plants to kill it or prevent it from growth. For this activity, we splited into two groups which is spraying herbicide and land clearing.
Part 2 students doing land clearing.
Part 2 students spraying herbicides.
Around 10 a.m, we have our break together with our PE and lecturer and enjoy our foods and drinks at the Nursery. After we finished our break, we washed our tools and equipment and stored them before we conclude our day.
Question Section
1.Describe how to prepare soil mixure
First you need topsoil, sand and organic matter. After that, you need to mix them well.
2.Why do we need to mix soil?
First,soil contains many nutrient needed by all plants to grow. Other than that, the quality of the soil help the plants to establish a healthy root system and develop abundant foliage. Lastly, it also give aeration to the plant so that the growth of the root can easily spread out.
3.What is the purpose of
Topsoil
Topsoil uses is quite extensive. It can be used to build gardens, fix lawns and make drainage better. No industry standard exists to define topsoil by its contents, so matching new topsoil as closely as possible to existing soil is important to prevent plant-growing problems.
Sand
The sand allows the water to flow through quickly, while the silt and clay hold it longer. The right combination of all three allows water and air to flow through the soil, appropriately trapping and releasing water and nutrients, making them available for plants and microbes.
Organic Matter
Organic matter bind soil particles into aggregates and improves the water holding capacity of soil.
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