APES Chapter 10
DDT is an example of which of the following types of compounds?
Chlorinated hydrocarbons - an organochloride
A sample of soil is evaluated and is found to have 20% sand, 30 % silt and 50% clay.
Clay
What component makes soil sticky, elastic, and impermeable?
Clay
What type of soil has the greatest water-holding capacity?
Clay
Which of the following is the BEST way to ensure soil health?
Strip farming and leaving residues on fields after harvest
Which of the following applications requires the least amount of pesticide for maintenance?
Insecticides inside a home to control pests
Which of the following methods of food preparation would best reduce pesticide residues related to bioaccumulation?
Trim the fat from meat, chicken, and fish
The best definition of soil would be
a complex mixture of organic matter, minerals, and living organisms
An effective way to measure soil erosion in a region is to measure the
sediment load of adjacent rivers
It is useful to classify pesticides based on their chemical structure because
similar chemical structures often relate to similar toxicological characteristics
When pesticide residues evaporate from soil and water in warm areas and then condense in and precipitate in colder regions, this is known as
the grasshopper effect
When soil erodes into waterways there are many ecological risks. Identify ONE risk to the aquatic environment and discuss a way that this risk could be reduced.
Appropriate risk examples include: eutrophication, increased sediment load, silting of reservoirs, smothering of wetlands and coral reefs, and increased turbity and reduction of light penetration. Acceptable methods include: strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, using cover crops, and reduced tillage systems.
Contains the weathered parent material
C horizon
Using the soil triangle below, determine the type of soil that would contain 30 percent sand, 40 percent silt, and 30 percent clay.
Clay loam
Soil conservation is critical to agriculture. Ironically, agriculture both causes and suffers from soil degradation. It is important to understand how soil loss occurs. How does agriculture impact soil degradation? Identify and explain the THREE types of soil degradation
Erosion by overgrazing and deep plowing allows wind to move the topsoil into waterways or over roads. Water washes the soil into waterways by either rill, sheet or gully erosion. • Chemical degradation occurs through salinization where excessive irrigation leaves water on the surface to be evaporated leaving salt behind to ruin soil for growing crops. • Physical degradation occurs from heavy equipment use and water logging causing compaction of soil to the point that roots can't penetrate or nutrients can't get to the roots.
Which federal legislation requires companies to register their pesticides with the EPA?
FIFRA
One characteristic of our industrialized agriculture is the farming of monocultures and all that it implies. However, in contrast to intensive and high-energy industrialized agriculture, there is a growing movement of low-input sustainable agriculture in our country. Identify ONE advantage and ONE environmental disadvantage with the farming of monocultures.
Integrated pest management (IPM) uses a combination of techniques to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides alone. Using biological controls such as predator species that feed on the pests does this. Using trap crops to lure pests away from the main crop before maturity is another method. Cultivation techniques such as crop rotation and vacuuming bugs off crops reduces the need for chemical pesticides. Using pathogens such at Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which is a natural occurring bacterium that kills the larvae of moths and butterflies.
Pesticides are both beneficial and problematic. You decide to write a research paper on the issue of pesticides for a class assignment. You want to include many facts and have written down questions that you want answered before you begin your paper. Describe what bioaccumulation is and how DDT became problematic in the United States.
It occurs when the concentration of a particular chemical in an organism is higher than normal due to that organisms placement on the food chain. In the 1960's DDT had accumulated throughout the aquatic food chain and eventually affected birds of prey that fed on the larger fish. The DDT in the peregrine falcons, brown pelicans, eagles, and other birds, was interfering with the shell production resulting in the loss of significant numbers of baby birds therefore causing losses in the populations of these birds.
Which of the following is the best reason to use organophosphates instead of organochlorines as a pesticide?
Less persistent in the environment than organochlorines
One characteristic of our industrialized agriculture is the farming of monocultures and all that it implies. However, in contrast to intensive and high-energy industrialized agriculture, there is a growing movement of low-input sustainable agriculture in our country. Identify ONE advantage and ONE environmental disadvantage with the farming of monocultures.
No synthetic chemicals are used • Livestock are rotated daily between pastures • Livestock stay outdoors even in the winter to reduce spread of disease • Antibiotics are used only to fight disease • Doesn't turn out the quantity of meat or milk that intensive agriculture does • Production costs are lower • Get higher prices for their crops and meat • Net gain is often higher
Soil conservation is critical to agriculture. Ironically, agriculture both causes and suffers from soil degradation. It is important to understand how soil loss occurs. List and explain TWO farming practices that control soil erosion.
Reduced tillage leaves plant residue on the ground to prevent erosion. Techniques such as minimum till involve less plowing. Conservtill involves slicing the soil wide enough to insert seed. Lastly, No-till is accomplished by drilling seeds directly through mulch into the ground. • Mulch is a protective ground cover that saves water and prevents soil erosion. • Cover crops can be planted after harvest to hold and protect the soil. • Perennial species keep soil in place because they grow for more than two years. • Interplanting of two different crops that mature at different times allows the soil to never be exposed to erosion. • Contour plowing across a hill protects soil from water erosion. • Strip farming combined with contour plowing creates ridges that trap water. • Terracing creates levels of shelves of earth to hold water and soil on hillsides.
Which of the following water erosion prevention methods would be appropriate for an area with steep slopes?
Terracing
Which of the following is not a drawback to using insecticides to control a pest outbreak?
The insecticide can potentially protect the crop from damage due to the insect pest and thus improve land productivity.
Pesticides are both beneficial and problematic. You decide to write a research paper on the issue of pesticides for a class assignment. You want to include many facts and have written down questions that you want answered before you begin your paper. What are TWO benefits that pesticides provide around the world both for human health and for crops
There are many acceptable answers which might include: controlling insect-borne diseases, less loss of food crops to diseases and predation, greater food security and better nutrition.
Pesticides are both beneficial and problematic. You decide to write a research paper on the issue of pesticides for a class assignment. You want to include many facts and have written down questions that you want answered before you begin your paper. What are TWO problems that pesticides provide around the world both for human health and for crops?
There are many acceptable answers which might include: pesticide poisonings, chronic illness associated with long-term pesticide exposure, pesticide resistance of organisms, creation of new pests, bioaccumulation, and killing of non-target organisms.
Spaces between sand particles give sandy soil
good drainage
Inorganic pesticides are generally
highly toxic and remain in the soil for a long time
Significant agricultural monetary losses are due to the loss of _____ through pesticide spray drift and residues on flowers.
honeybees
he letters A, B, C, and D on the graph above represent different horizons in a soil. The letters represent, in order,
topsoil; subsoil; parent material; bedrock
In order to institute an integrated pest management program, it is necessary to
understand local plants and animals
In which horizon layer of the graph above would you find the most plant roots?
A
Which of the populations first began to show pesticide resistance?
A
Topsoil
A horizon
Which of the following is the most appropriate definition of soil?
A mixture of minerals from parent material and decomposed organic matter influenced by climate and topography formed over time that supports plants
Which of the following impacts might occur on irrigated arid land?
A, B & C
One characteristic of our industrialized agriculture is the farming of monocultures and all that it implies. However, in contrast to intensive and high-energy industrialized agriculture, there is a growing movement of low-input sustainable agriculture in our country. Identify ONE advantage and ONE environmental disadvantage with the farming of monocultures.
Advantage: • higher yields per acre. • uniform practices for farming reduces costs. • fertilizers and pesticides can be specifically targeted for the crop. Disadvantage: • loss of genetic diversity. • loss of soil fertility due to intense farming requiring additional fertilizer that can run off into waterways causing pollution. • pest adaptation to genetically identical crops requiring larger inputs of pesticides, killing more non target species. • pesticide resistant organisms evolve and those species spread into the environment.
Soil type found in Tennessee and North Carolina
Alfisols
Two types of soil that dominate most of the US farming regions are
Alfisols and Mollisols
Soil type found in the Mojave desert
Aridosols
Explain desertification and list the TWO regions of the world that scientists are the most concerned with
As the conversion of productive lands to desert due to overuse, climate change, or erosion. Regions of concern: Africa and India.
Tends to be richer in clays and is known as the subsoil
B horizon
A pest control measure most effective on butterfly and moth larvae is
Bt spray
The type of pesticide found to be extremely toxic to bees belongs to which of the following groups of compounds?
Carbamates
Which of the following is an organochlorine pesticide?
DDT
Contains eluviated or washed out soil
E horizon
Pesticides are both beneficial and problematic. You decide to write a research paper on the issue of pesticides for a class assignment. You want to include many facts and have written down questions that you want answered before you begin your paper. Integrated pest management (IPM) is a flexible, ecologically based strategy that is applied at specific times and aimed at specific crops and pests. Describe TWO methods that utilize IPM.
Possible answers include: vacuuming pests off crops, trap crops, crop rotation, and using biological controls.
What prediction can be made about the future of population "b"?
Resistance will continue to increase
according to the texture triangle 50% clay, 20% sand, and 30% silt is in the "Clay" portion of the triangle.
Silty clay loam
List THREE farming practices that increase soil erosion.
There are many possible answers that might include: slash and burn agriculture, intensive tilling, planting crops on a hill without the use of contouring or terracing, and monocrop agriculture.
Salinization is a common agricultural problem in _____ regions.
arid
Pesticide resistance occurs when a population of pests
changes genetically, via natural selection, and is no longer affected by the chemicals
The pesticide treadmill occurs when
continually increasing doses of pesticides are needed to control pests
All of the following are examples of behavioral changes as alternatives to current pesticide use EXCEPT
development of broader classes of pesticides
The largest reason for the inefficiency of irrigation water use in most countries is
evaporative losses from unprotected water channeling
If not restored, areas affected by rill erosion can then be subject to
gullying
The benefits of leaving crop residues on a field after harvest include all of the following EXCEPT
lessening soil moisture
The soil type commonly found in prairies is
mollisols
As resistant pests evolve, there is an ever-increasing need for new and better pesticides. This is know as the
pesticide treadmill
Contour plowing and strip farming are methods designed to
prevent water and soil loss
The best cropping method for reducing soil erosion is
rotating corn, wheat, and clover
Annual row crops such as beans and corn cause the highest topsoil erosion rates because
the soil is left bare for the majority of the year
Pesticide resurgence is part of the problem of pesticide resistance and happens when a pest organism
tolerant to the pesticide survives and produces tolerant offspring
The use of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) which affects the larva stage of moths is an example of
using biological controls to control pests
One characteristic of our industrialized agriculture is the farming of monocultures and all that it implies. However, in contrast to intensive and high-energy industrialized agriculture, there is a growing movement of low-input sustainable agriculture in our country. Identify ONE advantage and ONE environmental disadvantage with the farming of monocultures.
• large inputs of artificial fertilizers • Disadvantages: runoff causes algal blooms in waterways; fish kills from low dissolved oxygen in water after decomposition of excess organic matter • large inputs of pesticides • Disadvantages: kills non-target species; fish kills from runoff into waterways, wind drift carries it to unintended areas • large inputs of fossil fuels • Disadvantages: release of carbon dioxide which contributes to climate change; environmental damage associated with mining of fossil fuels; emission of nitric acid which is a precursor to acid rain and lowers pH in waterways and soils killing some plants and animals
