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GOOD Morning friends and neighbors. There is one thing believers in Jesus should be known for, that is love. The words love appears in scripture more than 500 times. The essence of the gospel is love-for God so loved the word he gave us his only begotten son-Jesus Christ.

Christians are to serve one another in love, love their neighbors as themselves, live a life of love and love with actions and in truth. So, If Jesus and his followers are all about love, why do some people love to hate us? Why are there then as estimated 200 million persecuted believers in the world today. Jesus told us why, he said “everyone practicing evil hates the light and stays away from the light lest his deeds should be exposed.” When Jesus walked this earth people hated him because he exposed the darkness of their sins. How about you friends – do you walk in the light. I hope so. Lets pause for a moment. Some will hate you, some will love you some will flatters, some will slight, cease from man, and look above you, trust in God and do the right love in return for love is natural. But love in return for hate is supernatural.

Our topic-we spent last week looking at nitrogen. It was necessary to spend quite a bit of time on this nutrient because it is the most important nutrient of all. With this rapidly increasing oil prices, the cost of nitrogen fertilizers is becoming too expensive for many small growers to use, So there is a greater need to replace the soil nitrogen by growing more legume crops. Moving on, our next nutrient is phosphorus.

The behavior of phosphorus in the soil is very different from that of nitrogen. But is similar in one respect. Some organic phosphorus is converted into inorganic phosphate each season by the action of soil organisms in a process similar to the formation of nitrate, but crops obtain only a small proportion of their requirements in this way. Unlike nitrate, phosphate does not move in the soil water but becomes insoluble.

None is leached from the sol and so unused phosphate fertilizer accumulates. Plants can feed on these accumulated residues and do not have to rely on fresh phosphate from the breakdown of organic matter. Most soils have considerable reserves of inorganic phosphate built up over years of fertilizer application. The availability to crops of phosphate accumulated from fertilizer residues varies greatly between soils. The absorption of phosphate by the soil is similar to absorption of water by a sponge. When the sponge has taken in a small amount of water it is very difficult to extract any water from it. But when the sponge is very wet, water can be easily removed from it. In a similar way soil first strongly absorb phosphate, but as the soil approaches saturation it is held less tightly and becomes more and more easily extractable by plants. Clay soil can absorb much more phosphate than light soils, they generally have less readily available to plants than sands or loam's which are usually out of rich. Levels or available phosphate do not build up to any extent and they always test low by soil analysis. On such deficient soil each crop must be generously manured, and it is advantageous to place the fertilizer phosphate near the seed so that the crop can absorb all it requires before the soil converts it to less available forms.

Phosphate deficiency is rare in arable crops. Owing to the accumulation of fertilizer residues over many years. The plants that are suffering from phosphate deficiency are stunted and lack vigor. The foliage is dull in colour and may have bluish tints, in severe cases the old leaves wither. Crops vary greatly in their response to phosphate and their ability to extract it from the soil. Cereal crops give little or no response except on very deficient soils and are good extractors, so manuring is just a matter of putting back the nutrients removed by the crop.

Many tropical soils immobilize phosphate, under acid conditions iron and aluminum phosphates are formed and in calcareous soils calcium and magnesium phosphate all of which have a low solubility. By placing pellets or granules of phosphate fertilizer a centimeter from the seed a low application rate will give the maximum effect on soils that readily fix phosphate. Quite a lot o the soil phosphate is present in an organic form, on some soils this may be half or more, and the phosphate level is maintained by maintaining the amount or organic matter in the soil. Phosphate deficiency is very common in the Asian area. The soils from sedimentary rocks are especially phosphate deficient, and many of these soils have insufficient phosphate for optimum growth.

Phosphate stimulates root growth, which spreads the roots through a greater volume of soil to forage and improve drought resistance and assist nodulation in leguminous plants. Phosphate also encourages earlier maturity which partly counters late planting and the effect of nitrogen. Well farmers and growers I hope this has been of some value to you, We will continue with the other nutrients next week. Take care, see you then.