Know your soil's apetite.

If you are looking for good crop from your land, then you should give him sufficient food to give you what you expect. But, it will never ask how much you have to feed. Hence, it is our duty to see that whether what we are giving by way of fertilizers and manures is sufficient for the field to give desired yields and support the healthy crop growth. For this, it is must for all we farmers, that we check the soil nutrient status atleast once in 3 seasons, so as to plan our fertilizer applications.
So, it needs soil analysis. For this, first of all we should take a representative soil sample from our field in off season (when soil is vacant - it is good if we take in April/May). Taking sample is simple, but we should take some points into consideration.

• The sample should be collected from the field, leaving bunds, manure heaps, shade of trees, etc.
• We should take sample from at least 10 locations in our field covering entire field. One sample is sufficient, upto 2.0 ha. or a sample for each of soil type we have within this 2.0 ha. 
• Based on crops to grow, the depth depends, either 45 cm, 60 cm and so on.
• the surface soil is cleared and sample is collected from V shaped pits made with spade and slicing the edges of pit, should collect all the soil collected in the pit.
• All the soil from 10 locations is heaped on a flat neat surface, mixed well and soil is quartered to get desired sample size of 1/2 a kg per sample. (for detailed method consult your Agrl. Officer)
• The sample bag is labelled with name, survey no. , landmark of field, crop to be grown etc. and sent to the nearest soil testing lab for analysis immediately.

It is well proved that many of us are wasting lot of money on fertilizers as we are indesciminately applying it to our soils. Thus a lot of wastage of money can be avoided, if we get our soil analysed and the recommendations are followed in the season. Moreover, we will get a good healthy crop, with inherent strength in it to defend from pests and diseases and reap better yields at rational costs.

Raju