Gain from mineralising organic fertiliser for farmers: energy for soil microorganisms and release of mineral nutrients for plant nutrition

What we appreciated more for organic fertilisers? Gain of energy and enhancement of the microbial activity of soil or savings that are obtained by the supply of mineral nutrients? Unfortunately, simplified economic opinions cause each superficial evaluator to prefer the gain of mineral nutrients released from organic matter. Such a gain is also easy to calculate. The calculation of the gain from an increased microbial activity of soil is difficult and highly inaccurate. Nevertheless, a good manager will unambiguously prefer such a gain. It is to note that the microbial activity of soil is one of the main pillars of soil productivity, it influences physical properties of soil, air and water content in soil, retention of nutrients in soil for plant nutrition and their losses through elution from soil to groundwater. A biological factor is one of the five main factors of the soil-forming process; without this process the soil would not be a soil, it would be only a parent rock or perhaps a soil-forming substrate or an earth at best.

Hence, it is to state that the release of mineral nutrients for their utilisation by plants during mineralisation of organic fertiliser in the soil produces an economically favourable effect but it is not the primary function of organic fertiliser, its only function is the support of microedaphon. The effect of mineral nutrients is replaceable by mineral fertilisers, the energetic effect for the microbial activity of soil is irreplaceable.