Day twelve..
An afternoon with john stapleton - which got underway with the principles of plant science!
"The branch of science concerned with the formation, nature, ecology and classification of soil"
Soil, is commonly referred to as sand, silt and clay depending on the size of its particle diameters and a great learning tool is the soil classification triangle - we had to create one of these in class and then work out some soil types according to the amount of sand, silt and clay in each example. Good little exercise.
We then started to look at some typical types of grasses found in the uk including the key species; perennial ryegrass, Italian ryegrass, hydrid ryegrasses, Timothy, cocksfoot, red fescue and meadow fescue. We looked at the structure of some grasses, but this information wasn't really sinking in! We then began making a table of all the main qualities and structure of the key grasses but the internet connection was rubbish - so for homework this just needs finishing off.
We finished off our session by discussing the main agricultural crops grown in the uk; what their main uses are and any applicable by-product uses, whether in the agricultural feed industry, human food consumption or other use.
We also added an entry on to the brackenhurst online farm map, the boys wrote up the ploughing and discing in wiles close and on behalf of the *enda ladies* I uploaded our store lamb work carried out at sheep walks east last week.
Word of the day "vernalisation" - a period of cold weather required by certain crops which enables them to grow, for example winter barley.
We ended the day with a group tutorial - brack agric tops ordered :)
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