What's the role of physical chemistry in Agriculture?

What is the use of chemistry in agriculture?

• Plz ppl i need help

• Answer:

  It is important to have a good basic grasp of chemistry to really understand the scope of what is done in agriculture, especially when understanding organic and sustainable systems and how they compare with chemical intensive systems. You know that adding a bag of fertilizer to your crops helps them grow. But when you know why it does that, you now not only have more overall control (especially of the financial output) but now can do a better job in terms of production and environmental impact. As an example, you go out to your garden and you see that a progressive yellowing of the leaves of your lettuce plants has gotten worse, seemingly overnight. You might suspect a disease or maybe too little or too much fertilizer. But you gave them this "stuff" just the other day, this "super duper phosfuzz- potash splash" from Z Chemical Coop. So you must have a disease? If you didn't know chemistry and whipped out your little mojo bag and tossed a handful of Grandfathers chicken bones, twigs and pebbles on an old trash can lid and the spirits lined them up in a message "undoubtedly maybe so a disease". So you rummage around for what? See what I mean. If you knew chemistry you would not have bought that $10 bottle of Phosfuzz splash because you would have seen that the main ingredient, potassium phosphate in a water base could have been had for $10 a 50 pound bag, and you been had because you bought it for the cool bottle. Has you found that cool bottle of stuff at a yard sale for 25 cents and used it, had yellow lettuce leaves and looked at the label, as you know chemistry you see, "Hey, there is no nitrogen in this stuff, its great for roots and flowers but it has nothing for leaf production and greening/ chlorophyll". Why organic? If you didn't understand chemistry then you could not begin to comprehend how and why different things work or don't work. If you grow hectares of a product, you are not going to make a huge investment without a detailed soil analysis, and then a nutrient/ plant analysis at intervals to insure that your plants are growing well and not missing anything. You might not even be aware that you can have plant samples ashed and analyzed to see how they are growing because you don't know enough basic chemistry (and that's all you need) to look or to interpret results. You could pay someone to do that, but that added expense is off your profit (shoulda tooka course). Even if you just have a garden so your family of five can eat some great fresh foods (more important for the vegetarians still) and save a lot of money and not worry about E. coli killing you. Your garden that you depend on will become a nightmare. You wanted to have fun in the sun with the kids and have some great corn and salads when everyone is up for the holiday weekends. What a huge waste of time and money and the kids will never want a fresh veggie again, and your sick because you inadvertently poisoned yourself with a pesticide. You and the doctors don't know that though, because you have no clue that mixing those things together makes a poison gas used in WW1 trench warfare. You'll get better in a couple weeks and loose those unwanted love handles while retching in bed, instead of eating well and working outside. Far fetched yes, but it has happened, and more than you think. That which separates us from our past is the knowledge handed down to us to use. It is culture, society, and civilization; we build on the blocks laid down previously. If knowledge is all it takes to do a good job, that all that needs to be said. Bottom line though, working for yourself is one thing in the agricultural world, but if you work for someone else, you need chemistry or you need a shovel and a hoe. Which tool do you want to spend the most time with (yup, you will need them all but you get more money for your mind and experience).