SCI 1102 Chapter 9: Food Production 1
Document Summary
Module 1 food production: soils & agriculture. Rich prairie soils have historically enable bountiful grain harvests. Repeated cycles of plowing and planting have diminished the soils fertility since farmers first settled in the region. Topsoil: valuable surface layer richest in organic matter and nutrients, lost to erosion, washed away by water and blown away by the wind. Turning the earth by tilling (plowing, disking, harrowing, or chiseling) aerates the soil and works weeds and old crop residue into the soil to nourish it: tilling also leaves the surface bare. Allows wind & water to erode away topsoil. Abandoned the conventional practice of tilling the soil in 2005: turned to no-till farming. Rather than plowing they left crop residues on the field: keeping the soil covered with plant material at all times. Cut a thin, shallow groove into the soil surface, dropped in seeds, & covered them.
