Soil Conservation

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Soil Conservation

• The management of soil to prevent its destruction

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• I. Value
• A. Everything that lives on land depends on
  soil.
• 1. Plants need soil to grow.
• 2. Animals eat plants (or other animals that eat
  plants) to live.
• B. Soil is renewable, but it takes a long time
  to form.
• 1. Hundreds of years for a few centimeters.
• C. Fertile soil is in limited supply.
• 1. lt1/8 of land has good farming soil.

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• II. Soil Problems
• A. Damage
• 1. When one crop is grown in the same spot year
  after year, the soil loses nutrients and becomes
  exhausted.
• 2. Crop rotation helps fix this problem.
• 3. Growing peanuts also restores the soil
  fertility.
• a. Discovered by George Washington Carver.

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• B. Loss
• 1. Erosion from water and wind can take soil
  away.
• 2. 1930s - farmers plowed the grass on the
  Great Plains and removed the sod.
• 3. A drought occurred and turned the topsoil to
  dust.
• 4. The wind blew the soil away out over the
  Atlantic Ocean, lost forever. This was called
  the Dust Bowl.

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Summary3 ways soil can be damaged or lost

• 1. planting the same crop every year exhausts the
  soil and it loses fertility and is damaged
• 2. not protected from water erosion if plants
  are removed rain can wash soil away
• 3. wind erosion loss of dry unprotected soil.
  Dust bowl of the Great Plains.

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• III. Conservation
• A. Contour plowing
• 1. Plowing fields along the curves of a slope to
  reduce runoff and washing away of the soil.
• B. Conservation plowing
• 1. Leaves previous years crop stubble (dead
  weeds and stalks) in the ground, and plants in
  between them. This disturbs the ground cover as
  little as possible. Allows the roots to hold the
  soil in place.