the ability of a soil to sustain agricultural plant growth
Soil scientists use the capital letters O, A, B, C, and E to identify the master horizons, and lowercase letters for distinctions of these horizons. Most soils have three major horizons—the surface horizon (A), the subsoil (B), and the substratum (C). Some soils have an organic horizon (O) on the surface, but this horizon can also be buried. The master horizon, E, is used for subsurface horizons that have a significant loss of minerals (eluviation). Hard bedrock, which is not soil, uses the letter R. Desert east of Birdsville, Australia. Much of Australia is sparsely populated as its desert soils are mostly infertile; thus unable to support larger scale human habitation. Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality (see also soil health). A fertile soil has the following properties:
The ability to supply essential plant nutrients and water in adequate amounts and proportions for plant growth and reproduction; and
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).