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Marcelo Beltrán, agronomist at the Soil Institute of the Castelar National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) (Buenos Aires), assured that “in Argentina only 30% of the nutrients that are extracted from cultivated soils are replaced through the use of fertilizers ”.
Beltrán highlights in an INTA Informa publication that the problem is aggravated by the use of high-yield crop varieties, which demand a greater amount of nutrients, and “for several years, the soils of the Pampas region have suffered an intense depletion of nutrients as a consequence of a long agricultural history ”.
A clear example of this can be the micronutrient zinc, where since 2016 to date field studies have been carried out and showing that the nutrient has already become a limitation for Argentine crops, when decades ago its application was not necessary.
Considering the opinion of Alberto Quiroga, specialist from INTA Anguil (La Pampa), the picture is getting darker for Argentine soils.
“Livestock intensification, with mechanical forage harvesting and transfer to pens, tripled the extraction rate of some nutrients. Its concentration in pens and dairy effluents accentuates the risks of contamination ”, he pointed out.
Both researchers recognize that, since the 90s and as a consequence of soil erosion processes and the removal of nutrients without replacement by fertilization, soils began to show symptoms of nutrient impoverishment and reductions in organic matter content.
According to estimates by Hernán Sainz Rozas, specialist in soil fertility and crop fertilization at INTA Balcarce (Buenos Aires), in the Pampean region soils show values between 30 and 40% lower than those in their original condition.
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