Soil 205- General Soils

Study questions Quiz 5

1. What are all of the important sources and sinks in the K cycle?

2. Explain three “problems” with K nutrition.

3. Explain two factors that influence micronutrient availability in soils.

4. What determines K availability in soils? What are the different mineral forms of K and how are they related?

5. What are three specific concerns over micronutrient management?

6. In your own words (chemical reactions are not required) explain why most micronutrients are more available at low pH. Why does Mo behave differently?

7. In what type of conditions are micronutrients most often found to limit plant growth?

8. What is a chelate and how does it increase micronutrient availability?

9. Explain the shape of the following graph showing plant growth vs. micronutrient concentration.

10. Explain the four major goals of nutrient management.

11. What are three ways to protect environmental/water quality outside of the soil?

12. List and compare (in terms of nutrient supplying capacity) several organic and inorganic nutrient resources.

13. What are three things that can be used to better match the application of N fertilizers with plant uptake?

14. What are the different application methods for liquid, solid, and gaseous fertilizers?

15. What is the Haber process?

16. List the possible application methods for each of the fertilizers in the following table.

Fertilizer	Method(s) of application
Ammonium nitrate
Urea
Anhydrous ammonia
Aqueous ammonia

17. How do the two major different sampling schemes differ from each other?

18. What is soil quality?

19. How does industrial and economic growth influence the importance of the various functions of soil?

20. What is the significance of the “Green Revolution”?

21. How were we able to increase yields/ac during the Green Revolution?

22. What were the positive and negative impacts of the Green Revolution on soil quality?

23. Describe the three major factors that will determine future efforts to protect our soil resources.

24. What is the major objective of soil survey?

25. Why do we use soil mapping units? How are the five different soil mapping units defined?

26. What are land capability classes? Which classes are suitable for agriculture?

Pasture? Which classes are best to keep as wildlands?

27. What are the possible subclasses to the land capability class?

28. Give an example of two uses of soil surveys.