Week 3 - Soil Mixture

                          

Hello there! This week activity is really interesting because we are playing with soil. So in this post, I will share to you about soil mixture. 

The lecturer in charge, Mr Nuruddin have briefed to us about the tools and equipment that we will used during this activities. We had used sand, organic matter which is chicken dung, topsoil, polybags, wheelbarrow and shovel. 

          This soil mixture is used for the major crops which is rubber and oil palm. First and foremost, we need to know the ratio of  the plant medium.The ratio is 3 : 2 : 1 which is Topsoil : Organic Matter : Sand .

        Topsoil refers to the top layer of soil that is high in organic matter and nutrients. The cation exchange (CEC) is high . For organic matter (OM) we specifically used chicken dung.

      Organic matter has a high water holding capacity and good in absorbing water. Its cation exchange is also higher that topsoil. The advantages of organic matter is soil aggregates and give aeration.Sand is use in a small amount because its water holding is low.The function of planting medium is to hold the plant,nutrients and water and to make the root grow.

The students gathered to listened to the briefing from the Planters Executives.

Here you can see the student is using a shovel to take the topsoil from the wheelbarrow.

In this picture, the students is using their hands to mix the soil mixture. They also need to remove unwanted things such as rocks and twigs from the mixture.

This week we have given a video assignment about soil mixture. You can watch the video in the link provided https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsyxYwAr3kY or you can just click the video at the top of this post. :)