Lab #4

For lab 4 we went to the community gardens which are across the street and checked out all of the different plants that the local community was growing here in Macon.  This push for local gardens is from the foundation of Macon Roots which promotes community gardens as a way for people to grow their own gardens and tend to them in urban areas. It is pretty cool. 

The soil type that I chose was the Oxisol soils which are very highly weathered soils that are found primarily in the intertropical regions of the world. These soils contain few weatherable minerals and are often rich in Fe and Al oxide minerals. Most of these soils are characterized by extremely low native fertility, resulting from very low nutrient reserves, high phosphorus retention by oxide minerals, and low cation exchange capacity (CEC). Most nutrients in Oxisol ecosystems are contained in the standing vegetation and decomposing plant material. Despite low fertility, Oxisols can be quite productive with inputs of lime and fertilizers.

I find it interesting that even though it is not very fertile many plants can still grow in it.