Day 51..
Another intense two hours of Plant Science and Agricultural Crop production! We started off by looking more in depth at photosynthesis, which is this: plants make their own food by photosynthesis. Carbon dioxide and water react together on the presence of light and chlorophyll to make glucose and oxygen. The glucose is converted into starch, fats and oils for storage. It is used to make cellulose for cell walls and proteins for growth and repair. It is also used by the plant to release energy by respiration! (Yes, that is from the lecturers notes! I'm not that clever). To investigate soils in more depth we were divided into groups and with a list of recommended websites had to research why soil is important for crop rotations, soils and icm (integrated crop management). We displayed our results on the whiteboard and tried to discuss our findings in more detail as they were revealed.
Crop rotations
Rest - micro organisms, compaction
Nutrient uptake
Yield - fertiliser
Structure
Pest / disease build up
Nitrogen fixing - peas, beans, clover
ICM
Cross compliance - buffer strips, LERAPS (Local Environment Risk Assessment for Pesticides), boundary schemes etc
Water courses - soil texture, run-off, leaching
Soils
Crop establishment
Production
Composition - sand, silt, clay
Texture and structure
Ads clay = water holding capacity (whc), nutrient rich
Dis ads clay = hard to work! whether hot or cold conditions
Ads sand = workable
Dis ads sand = non nitrogen fixing
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