Chapter Questions
Explain how soil is basic to all life on Earth.
What are the basic, observable characteristics of soil that are used to differentiate one soil type from another?
Describe the characteristics of an A soil horizon and describe what characteristics of an A horizon result in increased crop production.
Explain why a person should not be able to determine the natural (nonfertilizer) crop nutrients in soil by knowing the rock that underlies that soil. Explain why this is not correct.
Explain three reason why increasing the organic matter in soil should lead to an increase in crop yield in any soil.
List the basic crop nutrients found naturally in soil. Why might these be different from the same nutrients found in the soil's parent material?
Explain how soil is complex, giving the components it contains and how these components are related to each other.
Explain how soil erosion depletes soil of plant nutrients.
Reproduce the chemical equations that show how organic matter decomposes in soil and what the products of this decomposition are.
In conserving soil, water is also conserved. Explain.