Exam 37: Soil and Plant Nutrition

The following questions refer to the description below. Soil can be considered a complex ecosystem because it contains inorganic particles,minerals,water,and a large diversity of living organisms that all interact with one another.Plants need soil to grow and humans depend on plants for food,building supplies,a source of heat,etc. -There are many ways that soils can be protected; which of the following is not one of them?

Hyphae form a covering over roots.These hyphae create a large surface area that helps to do which of the following?

Why does planting a cover crop help conserve soil? I.controls weed populations II.reduces soil loss due to wind and water erosion III.increases soil nutrients when plowed under and allowed to decompose

Which of the following soil minerals is most likely leached away during a hard rain?

A young farmer purchases some land in a relatively arid area and is interested in earning a reasonable profit for many years.Which of the following strategies would best allow the farmer to achieve such a goal?

How do macronutrients differ from micronutrients?

Which of the following are problems associated with intensive irrigation? I. mineral runoff II. over fertilization III.aquifer depletion IV.soil salinization

The earliest vascular plants on land had underground stems (rhizomes)but no roots.Water and mineral nutrients were most likely obtained by

Why is nitrogen fixation an essential process?

Which of the following is not true of micronutrients in plants?

Which two elements make up more than 90% of the dry weight of plants?

The figure below shows the results of a study to determine the effect of soil air spaces on plant growth. -The data in the above figure indicate that the plant

We would expect the greatest difference in plant health between two groups of plants of the same species,one group with mycorrhizae and one group without mycorrhizae,in an environment

A greenhouse experiment to test growth rates in tomato cultivars was conducted using sterile soil mix and watering with sterile solutions of water and fertilizer.Following germination,half of the plants in each group were transplanted into soil that was obtained from a nearby agricultural field (nonsterile),the other half into sterile soil.After several weeks the plants that were transplanted into nonsterile soil exhibited a much higher growth rate compared to the plants transplanted into sterile soil.The most likely explanation for this result is

In a root nodule,the gene coding for nitrogenase

A soil can be amended to reduce minerals from leaching into the water table by adding

In west Texas,cotton has become an important crop in the last several decades.However,in this hot,dry part of the country there is little rainfall,so farmers irrigate their cotton fields.They must also regularly fertilize the cotton fields because the soil is very sandy.The figure below shows the record of annual productivity (measured in kilograms of cotton per hectare of land)since 1960 in a west Texas cotton field.Use these data to answer the following questions. -You are conducting an experiment on plant growth.You take a plant fresh from the soil that weighs 5 kg.Then you dry the plant overnight and determine the dry weight to be 1 kg.Of this dry weight,how much would you expect to be made up of organic molecules?

A growing plant exhibits chlorosis of the leaves,especially the older,more mature ones.The chlorosis is probably due to a deficiency of which of the following macronutrients?

Which of the following is not a function of rhizobacteria?