Totally! Indian Landrace Exchange breaks it down here really well, I have this post saved for reference:
irrazinig 31w
The soil in Afghanistan is pre-dominantly calcareous and close to 50% of the soils of Afghanistan have a pH between 8 and 8.5, about 35% between 8.5 and 9.0 and about 10% between
9 and 9.5.
Afghanistan owes it’s characteristic alkalinity in soil to the climate/environment, Which is extremely dry for the most part, with little to no rains amounting to no more than 380mm/year in any given region.
Such an arid environment begets Physical weathering which is more pronounced in comparison to the rate of chemical and the soil formation itself. And most of the products of such weathering are generally retained within the soil itself.
Since Calcification is the biggest contributor of soil forming process in dry-arid conditions. Low rainfall triggers a seamless cycle of evaporation from the surface and replacement from the water table below.
The water being drawn continuously from the ground deposits contains dissolved calcium bicarbonate and upon the evaporation calcium carbonate is deposited within the soil-body, aiding in the accumulation of the substance, which affects the ph of the soil tremendously.
As far as the nutrition is concerned, there are 2 major and 1 ancillary source of it….
https://www.instagram.com/p/CuXNN8zxIKG
@upstate was just doing some soil prep/remediation based on these sorts of principles as I remember, he was rolling dense lumps of clay soil in manure/castings something like that maybe with lime? Instead of trying to actually mix it plow it whatever big thing, using these traditional soil building techniques. Here’s his follow along and learn thread: