Life Sciences Commons^™

Water Management, Imsa Fusion

An Epidemiological Approach to Addressing Food Insecurity

Objectives:

• Develop a technique to measure the porosity of soil.
• Explain how a high water table can reduce crop yields.
• Design and test a drainage tiling system.

Row Spacing Models, Imsa Fusion

An Epidemiological Approach to Addressing Food Insecurity

Objectives:

• Identify multiple row spacing models used by soybean farmers and determine how these planting arrangements impact crop yield.
• Explore how row spacing influences the amount of access that a plant has to the natural resources it needs to grow.
• Recommend a row spacing model that considers overall yield, economic efficiency, and potential environmental threats for a hypothetical farmer.

Soil Science, Imsa Fusion

An Epidemiological Approach to Addressing Food Insecurity

Objectives:

• Understand that soil is composed of inorganic and organic solid material, water, and air.·Investigate the properties of the inorganic solid components of soil: sand, silt, and clay.
• Recognize that varying proportions of sand, silt, and clay in a soil impact the soil’s ability to hold and transmit water. Experimentally determine the soil texture of a local soil sample.
• Determine the chemical composition of a local soil sample for pH, nitrate, phosphorus, and potassium levels.
• Analyze a given soil’s ability to support crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and oats.
• Provide recommendations for amending a given soil to support the …

Biological Variation, Imsa Fusion

An Epidemiological Approach to Addressing Food Insecurity

Objectives:

• Identify different phenotypes of corn (maize) kernels.
• Use ratios and sampling to determine which of two different ears of corn is most likely to have produced a given sample of kernels.
• Use Punnett Squares to determine the genotypes of the “parents” that produced the different kernel samples.
• Compare and contrast traditional selective breeding techniques with genetically engineering a desired trait in corn.
• Model the regulation of gene expression in a hypothetical cell.
• Discuss the potential role that epigentic variation may play in improving corn crops of the future.

Soil And Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography, Colby J. Moorberg

NPP eBooks

Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography highlights freely-available online resources covering various aspects of soil and water conservation, and is designed to be a resource for conservation students and practitioners. The thirteen chapters in the annotated bibliography are grouped into four sections, including History and Fundamentals, Conservation Practices, Conservation Implementation, and Careers. Types of cited resources include extension bulletins, USDA NRCS conservation practice standards, and other government reports and resources. Cited resources are generally concise, easily read, and meant for general audiences. Annotations and images are used to provide context for each resource. Many contributors made Soil and Water …

The Economics Of Food And Agricultural Markets, Andrew Barkley

NPP eBooks

The Second Edition of Economics of Food and Agricultural Markets is written for applied intermediate microeconomics courses. The book showcases the power of economic principles to explain and predict issues and current events in the food, agricultural, agribusiness, international trade, labor markets, and natural resource sectors. The field of agricultural economics is relevant, important and interesting. The study of market structures, also called industrial organization, provides powerful, timely, and useful tools for any individual or group making personal choices, business decisions, or public policies in food and agricultural industries.

Readers will benefit from a large number of real-world examples and …