Imsil-gun Provides Free Soil Testing Service for High-Quality Rice Production

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Nosik] On the 10th, Imsil-gun, Jeonbuk announced that it will provide free soil testing services to reduce pest damage and produce high-quality rice.

The County Agricultural Technology Center is actively encouraging the use of free soil testing services to diagnose soil conditions during the full-scale off-season and produce high-quality rice.

The soil testing service is a service that issues a fertilizer prescription when a farmer collects soil from the field where they want to understand the soil condition and requests testing.

The fertilizer prescription analyzes the amount of basal and topdressing fertilizer according to the crop, as well as soil acidity (pH), organic matter, available phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and available silica content, allowing the application of an appropriate amount of compost or fertilizer.

Soil sampling should be done after harvest or before transplanting without applying basal fertilizer. Since fertility varies by location even within the same plot, samples should be collected from multiple points.

For paddy fields, select 6 to 9 points in one plot, remove 1 to 2 cm of surface soil, and collect about a handful (approximately 500 to 600 g) of soil up to 15 cm deep using an adult male’s hand.

This year, the sesame leaf spot disease, which was problematic in the region, shows significant differences in occurrence depending on nutrient management according to soil type.

Due to the regional characteristic of mostly sandy soil with high sand content, nutrient retention capacity is low, making it highly vulnerable to sesame leaf spot disease.

This year, especially due to COVID-19, the number of farms using the soil testing laboratory decreased by more than 40% compared to the previous year.

Accordingly, the possibility of reducing damage caused by sesame leaf spot disease next year is low, so soil testing must be conducted.

By using the soil sample collection box located on the first floor of the comprehensive testing laboratory, requests and submissions can be made contactlessly, and soil test results (fertilizer prescriptions) will be notified by email or mail.

When using a PC or smartphone, you can access the soil environment information system ‘Heuktoram’ and enter the relevant area and lot number to easily check the status in real time.

County Governor Shim Min said, “To reduce pest damage such as sesame leaf spot disease and produce high-quality rice, soil testing is essential,” and added, “Since it is available free of charge, we hope many farmers actively use the soil testing service by collecting soil from their desired fields to apply appropriate fertilizer.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.