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South West UK | Ammonia is poisonous to a lot of organisms- this is why so many of them use the urea cycle to deal with nitrogen metabolism.
Urea is by far the most soil friendly source of nitrogen, firstly it breaks down slowly so you don't get highly elevated nitrate levels in localised spots, secondly it contains carbon.
All in all though, I wouldn't say fertilisers were ever designed to be friendly to soil life. Even heavy applications of manures are not friendly to soil life, either.
A healthy soil will just 'smell' right and will have an entire ecosystem of organisms in it beavering away doing helpful things to plants.
I would not rely on fertilisers killing pest species though. | |
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Agronomic Topic of the Week
