All plants require 17 elements to complete their life cycle, and an additional four elements ... plants derive the remaining 14 elements from the soil or through fertilizers, manures, and ...

Scientists have discovered a new phylum of microbes in the Earth's Critical Zone, an area of deep soil that restores water quality. Ground water, which becomes drinking water, passes through where ...

while a small proportion of the original carbon is retained in the soil through the formation of humus, a product that often gives carbon-rich soils their characteristic dark color (Fig.