Soils
These are the 4 components that make up soil.
What are minerals, organic matter, air and water?
This is a relative reflection of a soil's potential fertility and describes a soil's ability to hold and exchange cations.
What is Cation Exchange Capacity?
True or False: Less than 1% of the total energy generated by the sun reaches the Earth's surface.
True
This is a specific range of environmental conditions to which a species is adapted within a habitat.
What is a niche?
This is a system of organizing plant species.
What is taxonomy?
The raw material used to form soils is called this.
What is parent material?
True or False: Soils with higher organic matter content will have lower cation exchange capacity.
False! The higher the SOM, the higher the CEC
This climate classification system divides the Earth into regions based on temperature and precipitation.
What is the Koppen System?
What is plant succession?
These are grasses that produce an edible grain.
What are cereal crops?
This soil horizon is topsoil.
What is the A horizon?
These are the plant available forms of nitrogen.
What are nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH4)?
This is the number of days between the last spring frost and the first fall frost.
What are frost free days?
Animal production and annual crop rotations are examples of this.
What are agroecosystems?
This type of crop has seeds in pods.
What are legumes?
This is the soil order most commonly found in the agricultural area of Saskatchewan.
What is Chernozemic?
This describes the concentration of Hydrogen ions.
What is pH?
This is the point at which a plant can no longer extract water from a soil.
What is permanent wilting point?
This is the form of nitrogen found in our air.
What is N2 (atmospheric nitrogen)?
These crops are incorporated back into the soils while in a vegetative state to add nutrients or enhance soil quality
What are green manure crops?
This is determined by the amount of sand, silt and clay in a soil.
What is soil texture?
This is when a soil is considered to be saline.
When a soil contains enough soluble salts to reduce plant growth, it is considered to be saline.
This is the amount of water held between field capacity and permanent wilting point.
What is plant available water?
The process of converting carbon dioxide to organic compounds during photosynthesis is this part of the carbon cycle.
What is carbon fixation?
These plants complete their life cycle in 2 growing seasons.
What are biennials?