m75.    How can soil be conserved? 

Conventional tillage farming plows the land then smoothes it for planting.  The land may lie unplanted for weeks or months. Conservation tillage farming disturbs the soil as little as possible in planting crops.  The land may not be tilled at all.

Contour farming can reduce erosion by 30-50% by plowing with the contours of the land rather than in straight rows. Terracing converts the slope into a series of broad, nearly level areas for planting. Strip cropping puts a soil saving cover plant between each row of crop plants (soybeans between rows of corn). Alley cropping puts crops between rows of trees or shrubs.

Animal manure is the dung and urine from farm animals.  In some places, human waste is used as fertilizer. Green manure is fresh or growing vegetation that is plowed back into the fields. Compost is waste plant products. Inorganic fertilizers contain nitrogen, ammonium ions, nitrate ions, and/or urea.  They are easy to use and store but do not add humus to the soil and cause a potentially hazardous run-off. Crop rotation can be used to add nutrients to the soil by rotating soil-conditioning crops with those that deplete the soil.  

e04.    What sorts of resources do rangelands produce?

e23.    How is soil important to plants?  

g17.    Is some matter more useful than other matter?

g22.    What is soil? 

g23.    What are some characteristics of soil? 

g24.    How does soil move?