Correlation between Magnetic susceptibility of soil and it's fertility

[paulojomaje]

Hi everyone
I'm about to undertake
my final year project and i
will be researching and
writing on THE EFFFCT OF
HEAT ON THE MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY OF TOPSOIL
and how it relates to SOIL
FERTILITY..
I really need help on how
to go about it and i'll also
need links on contemporary related
researchs...

 

[ZapperZ]

Hi everyone
I'm about to undertake
my final year project and i
will be researching and
writing on THE EFFFCT OF
HEAT ON THE MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY OF TOPSOIL
and how it relates to SOIL
FERTILITY..
I really need help on how
to go about it and i'll also
need links on contemporary related
researchs...

This is all backwards.

How did you come up with the idea of trying to find a link between "magnetic susceptibility of topsoil" and "fertility"? I mean, it didn't just come to you in a dream or by divine revelation, did it? There has to be a rational impetus for thinking that there might be a link between those two quantities.

In other words, you should already have such "links on contemporary related research", or at least a few of them. If not, and this is simply some random association that you made up, we can't help you to find the unicorn.

https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=3588

Zz.

 

[paulojomaje]

Thanks ZapperZ for the comment.
i'll like you to know that you're dead right, the idea didn't come to in a dream or by divine revelation..

How did i come up with it?
Farmers in my place bake the topsoil/farmland during planting season before the actual planting of seedlings..
The baking( gathering of woods and grasses and burnig them on the farmland) process definitely alters the magnetic susceptibility
of the farmland depending on the intensity of baking.
In general cases, the intensity of baking varies spatially thus some portions of the farmland are highly baked, moderately baked, slightly bake and maybe not baked and hence each of these region's magnetic susceptibility will be different from the other..

Finally, during harvest, the highly baked region yeilds highest. It is then followed by the moderately baked region and then by the slightely baked region and it continues in that order. Talking about the yeild

Since the highest yeild came from the highly baked region that has the highest susceptibility, the fertility ought to correlate with the magnetic susceptibility for the regions..

 

[Menaus]

This is all backwards.

How did you come up with the idea of trying to find a link between "magnetic susceptibility of topsoil" and "fertility"? I mean, it didn't just come to you in a dream or by divine revelation, did it? There has to be a rational impetus for thinking that there might be a link between those two quantities.

In other words, you should already have such "links on contemporary related research", or at least a few of them. If not, and this is simply some random association that you made up, we can't help you to find the unicorn.

https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=3588

Zz.

I suppose you would also hate Einstein for believing that space could be warped if you lived in his time, you also would disagree with E=Mc^2 because that came from a dream as well.. :rofl:

I suppose you would also hate Tesla for purporting the possibility of a brush-less motor, which he figured out from a vision.

You really hate creativity don't you? Should it matter whether his idea came from a free energy association or a dream? No. Science is science, and if he does it correctly (which he ought to be able to if PF will help him) then it shouldn't matter as the results he will get will prove one way or the other. My free energy example would end up with him finding that the purported motor doesn't work, but if it does then his only fear would be other mainstream scientists who refuse to even attempt to look at the thing, and instead bash him for violating the second law of thermodynamics. Don't let that Ph.D get to your head. :) I'm not saying this guy will some how revolutionize anything, but you shouldn't discourage him and assume so terribly about him.

 

[ZapperZ]

I suppose you would also hate Einstein for believing that space could be warped if you lived in his time, you also would disagree with E=Mc^2 because that came from a dream as well.. :rofl:

I suppose you would also hate Tesla for purporting the possibility of a brush-less motor, which he figured out from a vision.

You really hate creativity don't you? Should it matter whether his idea came from a free energy association or a dream? No. Science is science, and if he does it correctly (which he ought to be able to if PF will help him) then it shouldn't matter as the results he will get will prove one way or the other. My free energy example would end up with him finding that the purported motor doesn't work, but if it does then his only fear would be other mainstream scientists who refuse to even attempt to look at the thing, and instead bash him for violating the second law of thermodynamics. Don't let that Ph.D get to your head. :) I'm not saying this guy will some how revolutionize anything, but you shouldn't discourage him and assume so terribly about him.

Not sure what medication you forgot to ingest, but you are completely off!

I wasn't discouraging any kind of creativity here. However, there has to be an impetus for many things. Einstein didn't come up with Relativity out of nowhere, or did not not know about the problem with Maxwell equation being not covariant under Galilean transformation at that time? Many advances in science were brought about either by an existing problem that just didn't fit in, or with a series of observations that hinted at some new physics yet to be discovered! No such description was mentioned in the OP, nor was there any kind of background information given until after I asked about it.

Ideas that came just via free association without any rationality behind it is called SPECULATION. It is against the rules of this forum for such a discussion.

Zz.

 

[ZapperZ]

Thanks ZapperZ for the comment.
i'll like you to know that you're dead right, the idea didn't come to in a dream or by divine revelation..

How did i come up with it?
Farmers in my place bake the topsoil/farmland during planting season before the actual planting of seedlings..
The baking( gathering of woods and grasses and burnig them on the farmland) process definitely alters the magnetic susceptibility
of the farmland depending on the intensity of baking.
In general cases, the intensity of baking varies spatially thus some portions of the farmland are highly baked, moderately baked, slightly bake and maybe not baked and hence each of these region's magnetic susceptibility will be different from the other..

Finally, during harvest, the highly baked region yeilds highest. It is then followed by the moderately baked region and then by the slightely baked region and it continues in that order. Talking about the yeild

Since the highest yeild came from the highly baked region that has the highest susceptibility, the fertility ought to correlate with the magnetic susceptibility for the regions..

But here you have made a major assumption that the baking has the sole purpose of changing ONLY the magnetic susceptibility of the soil. Are you aware of any studies that have been done to actually measure such a thing in the first place, i.e. the magnetic susceptibility of soil samples?

There are many gaps here in the series of logic that connects one thing to the next:

1. That the typical soil has a measurable magnetic susceptibility
2. Heating the soil has cause a PERMANENT change in such susceptibility (after all, if it doesn't change after it gets back to room temperature, what's the point?)
3. The fertility is directly affected by such susceptibility.

The burning of the grounds done in many places to increase the fertility of the soil for certain crops has more to do with the release of nitrogen into the ground. This is similar to planting legumes to improve the quality of the soil. So there already is an established explanation on why doing such a thing improves the soil. Unless you fill in the gaps that I mentioned above, you might be barking up the wrong tree here.

Zz.

 

[paulojomaje]

Once again, thanks for all your comments..

The research starts next month and it will last for a period of about 6 months.

 

[Bobbywhy]

paulojomaje,

I am guessing that your use of the English language may have caused some misunderstanding. When you say “THE EFFFCT OF HEAT ON THE MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY OF TOPSOIL” and when you say “Farmers in my place bake the topsoil/farmland during planting season before the actual planting of seedlings. The baking( gathering of woods and grasses and burning them on the farmland) process definitely alters the magnetic susceptibility of the farmland depending on the intensity of baking.” this may cause confusion in some people who read your post.

I will attempt to find different words for what the farmers do there and then I will make a guess about your project.

1. The farmers are not baking the soil. They are burning grasses and woods on the soil.
2. The ashes from these materials fertilize the soil and increase the crop yield. It is not the heat that changes the soil.

I found this using Google search:

“As a fertilizer, wood ashes are a good source of potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and aluminum. They typically contain less than 10% potash, 1 % phosphate, and trace amounts of micro-nutrients such as iron, manganese, boron, copper, and zinc. (Wood ashes do not contain nitrogen.) The exact chemical make-up of ashes varies according to wood type (hardwood ashes contain higher potassium levels than softwood ashes). If compared to a commercial fertilizer, wood ashes would probably read about 0-1-3 (N-P-K).
http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf000251.tip.html

3. My guess: Since the trace elements such as magnesium, aluminum, iron, manganese, copper, and zinc may affect the magnetic susceptibility of the soil then your thesis could be logical.

4. I am not qualified to say if these “trace” elements in very small amounts would indeed affect the characteristics of the soil enough to measure a change in the magnetic susceptibility. If yes, then you may have a viable hypothesis. Please let us know here how the experiment goes.

Cheers, Bobbywhy

 

[paulojomaje]

Thanks for the link Bobbywhy...
I'll try to keep y'all apprised on the research..

 

[boisebrats]

also baking may kill of growing fungus and bacteria which would naturally inhibit growth or yield of a plant, these organisms which are growing on the uppermost layers of the topsoil, may die off in the burn,(sterilizing the soil) .. also the addition of beneficial bacteria in compost after the sterilization may thrive with the prior removal of competitive species,. . bacteria and fungus play a large part in the assimilation of elements from the soil up through the roots.