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Why is soil important? Soil provides nutrients for plants. Soil also helps to support plant roots so the plants can grow well. Soil also provides a home, or habitat, for many living things. Soil is also very important for storing water.
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Soil Conservation
Soil Conservation
• Soil conservation means protecting soils from erosion and nutrient loss. Soil conservation can help to keep soils fertile and healthy.
Why is soil important?• Soil provides nutrients for plants.
• Soil also helps to support plant roots so the plants can grow well.
• Soil also provides a home, or habitat, for many living things.
• Soil is also very important for storing water.
How can soil be damaged or lost?
• One cause of soil loss is soil damage.
• Soil can be damaged if it is overused. Overused soil can lose its nutrients and become infertile.
What is soil erosion?
• Soil Erosion happens when wind, water, or gravity transports soil and sediment from one place to another.
What human activities affect soil erosion?
• Construction and Development • To make roads, houses, shopping malls, and
other buildings, people need to dig up the soil.
What can be done to prevent soil erosion?
• farmers can prevent soil damage if they use certain methods when they plow, plant, and harvest their fields.
Contour Plowing
• Contour plowing -farmers plow their fields along the curves of a slope.
• This helps slow the runoff of excess rainfall and prevents it from washing the soil away.
Terracing• Terraces changes one very steep field into
many smaller, flatter fields. • On very steep hills, farmers can use terraces
to prevent soil erosion • Terraces keep water from running downhill
very quickly.
No Till Farming
• In no-till farming, farmers leave the stalks from old crops lying on the field while the newer crops grow.
• The old stalks protect the soil from rain and help reduce erosion.
Cover Crop• Cover crops are crops that are planted
between harvests of a main crop. • Cover crops can help to replace nutrients in
the soil. • They can also prevent erosion by providing
cover from wind and rain.
Crop Rotation
• Crop rotation-a farmer plants different crops in a field each year.
• Different types of plants absorb different amounts of nutrients from the soil.
• Corn and cotton-absorb large amounts of nutrients.• Year after planting these crops, farmer plants crops
that use fewer nutrients, such as oats, barley, or rye.
• Some crops used in crop rotation can replace soil nutrients.
Windbreaks
• Windbreaks are rows of trees planted between fields to “break,” or reduce, the force of winds that can carry off soil.