Liming for Agriculture

If you do nothing else: Lime

Update: 2021/10/08

With the rising prices of fertilizer, there is much to be said about the importance of liming. The price of limestone has remained relatively stable compared to Ammonium Nitrate. Urea has more than doubled in the last year.
Liming raises the pH of the soil, unlocking nutrients that would otherwise be inaccessible to the crop. Optimising the soils pH also optimises the soils biology and health, which results in reduced wastage of expensive nutrients. Research shows that grass yields can be as much as 30% to 40% lower when the pH drops from the optimum of 6.5 to 5.5. By increasing the pH you increase the chance of a healthy high-yielding crop.
Liming for soil conditioning is not new. In the first half of the century, on top of the conventional thinking at the time that correcting the soil pH was essential to healthy plants, Prof William Albrecht argued the importance of liming as a critical element for plant nutrition in that it added both Calcium and Magnesium, elements required by plants for optimum growth. The Albrecht method of calculating how much Calcium or Magnesium to apply is still used today.

The department of Agriculture & Rural Development, argue that the acid soils are common in KwaZulu Natal and the only effective treatment is to mix limestone into the top soil.

References:
• Making the most of calcium as a soil and plant nutrient. Lloyd Phillips, Farmers Weekly, September 19, 2018
• Better payback from liming as fertiliser prices reach record high levels, Catherina Cunnane, 05/10/2021.
• https://thatsfarming.com/farming-news/liming-grassland-management/
• Soil Acidity and Liming in KwaZulu-Natal. Alan Manson, Department of Agriculture & Rural Development