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Agriculture

Practice of growing crops and raising livestock for human consumption

Cropland

Land used for agriculture, specifically for plants / crops

Rangeland

Land used for agriculture, specifically for livestock

Soil

Complex plant supporting system consisting of disintegrated rock, organic matter, water, gases, nutrients, and microorganisms. It is also a renewable resource.

Hunter-gatherers

• depending on wild plants and animals for our food

• No waste, since they hunted n shit

Selective breeding/Artificial selection

People began to selectively grow certain plants, agriculturally, to produce fruits and vegetables that suited their needs.

Traditional agriculture

Only using human and animal muscle power, along with hand tools and simple machines to perform agricultural tasks. Subsistence agriculture is when families produce only enough for themselves. Intensive traditional agriculture is when farmers aim to produce excess food to sell.

Industrialized agriculture

Fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizers, and chemical pesticides used for agriculture.

Monoculture

• Reduced biodiversity

• You basically become a one trick, literally

• Uniform planting of just a single type of crop

Green Revolution

• 1950’s time

• Less developed countries

• When new technologies became available to less developed countries

• Pros

  • Decreased starvation

  • Decreased deforestation and habitat loss

• Cons

  • Soil degradation

  • Increase use of fertilizers and pesticides

Soil Formation

Weathering, erosion, and deposition and decomposition of organic matter.

Weathering

Processes that break down rocks and minerals, turning large particles into smaller particles.

• Physical weathering - Breaks rocks down without triggering a chemical change in the parent material

• Chemical weathering - When water or other substances chemically interact with parent material

• Biological weathering - Occurs when living things break down parent material by physical or chemical means

O (Horizons)

Litter layer, also top soil. This is the top layer, the highest horizon.

A (Horizons)

• Topsoil, inorganic mineral components such as weathered substrate

• Organic material + minerals + humus

• Most nutrition for plants

• The second layer

E (Horizons)

• Empty of nutrients

• The good shit was either uptaken or gone further down

• Third layer

B (Horizons)

• Sub soil - the layer of soil located beneath the topsoil, often containing less organic matter and more minerals than the topsoil, and serves as a foundation for plant roots and supports drainage

• High in nutrients

• Fourth layer

C (Horizons)

Weather parent material

R (Horizons)

Pure parent material, last layer

Soil Color

The color of soil can indicate its composition and fertility. Black or dark brown soils are usually rich in organic matter, whereas a pale gray to white color often indicates

Soil Texture

• THe size of the different particles

• Clay - Smallest texture

• Silt - Medium sized texture

• Sand - Largest sized texture

• Loam - Even mixture and texture

• Permeability - How much space is in between the soil

• Large textured soil have lots of space since they’re too big to fill in random spaces

Soil Structure

Measure of the clumpiness of soil. Some degree of structure encourages soil productivity.

Soil pH

The degree of acidity or alkalinity and how it influences a soil’s ability to support plant growth. Plants can die in soils that are too acidic or alkaline, but moderate variation influences the availability of nutrients for plants’ roots. Acids from organic matter may remove some nutrients from sites of exchange between plant roots and soil particles, and water carries these nutrients deeper.

Cation exchange

Soil’s ability to provide plants with nutrients. Soil particle surfaces that are negatively charged hold cations, or positively charged ions. In this exchange, plant roots donate hydrogen ions to the soil in exchange for these nutrient ions. But as pH lowers, cation exchange diminishes, nutrients are leached away, and soils might provide plants with toxins.

Erosion causing Degradation

• Overcultivating fields through poor planning or excessive tilling

• Overgrazing rangelands with more livestock than the land can support

• Clearing forests on steep slopes or with large clear cuts

Splash

• Mildest form

• Caused by rain

• Erosion by rain

Sheet

Water flows in thin sheets over broad surfaces, washing topsoil away in uniform layers

Rill

Water runs along small furrows, deepening and widening them into channels

Gully

Cuts deeply into soil, leaving large space that expand as erosion proceeds

Desertification

• Loss of more than 10% productivity

• Loss of biodiversity

• Habitat loss

• Erosion, soil compaction, forest removal, overgrazing, drought, salinization, climate change, depletion of water sources

• Can expand desert areas and create new ones

Crop Rotation (Degradation Prevention)

Farmers alternate the type of crop grown from one season. This can return nutrients to the soil, break cycles of disease associated with continuous cropping, and minimize the erosion that can come from letting fields lie fallow.

Contour Farming (Degradation Prevention)

Plowing furrows sideways across a hillside, prevent the angle of the slope to carry away soil.

Terracing (Degradation Prevention)

• Looks so cool and satisfying

• Level platforms cut into steep hillsides

• Prevents water erosion

• Sustainable way to farm in mountainous terrain

Intercropping (Degradation Prevention)

• Plant different crops in alternating bands

• Helps with pests, you’re diversifying

• Prevents erosion by providing more ground cover than a single crop season

Shelterbelts (Degradation Prevention)

• Rows of trees or tall plants

• Reduce erosion caused by the wind

Reduced tillage (Degradation Prevention)

• Little disturbance of topsoil

• Doesn’t disturb the soil

Waterlogging

When too much water is given to plants. The water table rises to the point that water bathes plant roots, depriving them of access to gases and essentially suffocating them.

Salinization

• Description

  • Buildup of salts in surface layers

  • Too much salt in soil is bad because 

  • The excess salt will prevent plants from uptaking water

• Causes

  • High evaporation

  • Dry conditions

  • Irrigation

• Prevention

  • Avoid planting crops that need high amounts of water in dry areas

  • If you don’t waste too much irrigation, then you won’t experience this

  • Efficient irrigation, excessive waterlogging and prevent evaporation which leaves the salt there

Drip

• Targeted

• Basically no waste

• Very low evaporation

• People don’t want to use it because it is expensive

Furrow

• Uneven water distribution

• THis is the one with the highest evaporation rate

• Cheap, low tech so used a lot

Flood

• Inefficient because it evaporates a lot

• Waterlogging, where the plant root is being suffocated with the excess water

• Sometimes the plants can’t handle the pool of water

Fertilizers (synthetic)

• Can cause eutrophication

• Can cause groundwater contamination 

• The gases from the fertilizers can cause air pollution, like Nitrous Oxide

• Also can cause soil acidification, which leads to worse cation exchange