Tilling or Plowing Is a Common Agriculture Practice That Has

Essay

Tilling or plowing is a common agriculture practice that has been proven to have a profound impact on the nitrogen cycle. Tilling breaks up hard soils to ease the planting and germination of crops, and it also introduces more oxygen into the soil. Many fertilizers contain N in the form of ammonia because ammonia is readily absorbed and used by plants, while N in the form of nitrate is more mobile and is more easily lost from the soil. Based on your knowledge of microbial transformations of inorganic nitrogen species, what impact would you predict extensive tilling to have on the fate of ammonium-based nitrogen fertilizer?