By W.Batke

Teacher Notes

Activity

Soil Formation Part 2

Let us Review

What are the two main ingredients that make make up soil?

Soil Ingredients

Weathered Rock

Humus

Inorganic Organic

Let us look at the organic component:

Organic matter is the remains of once living plants and animals in the soil. Bacteria, fungi, insects, and earthworms use fresh organic matter as food. During the process of digestion, they convert this material into humic substances and nutrients making them available to plants.

Some of the benefits of increased organic matter in soils are:

* increased pore space* increased permeability* higher water holding capacity* greater capacity to hold and release nutrients* improved cultivation ease (tilth)

Of course, this takes a long time....

Many years of allowing plants to grow, die and break down

Ideally, there is a balance between the organic and inorganic components of the soil, giving it the ability to produce bountiful crops.

In conclusion, there are four factors of soil formation:

Parent Material

In conclusion, there are four factors of soil formation:

Climate

In conclusion, there are four factors of soil formation:

Organisms

In conclusion, there are four factors of soil formation:

Time

Teacher notes:

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*Slides that do not advance automatically must be advanced manually by left clicking on the mouse button.

*Back arrows on each slide move to previous slide.

*Topics are intended to be discussed in class and science journal notes or records are encouraged.

*Programs may be viewed in any sequence although they tend to build upon one another.

Soil Importance, Soil Formation Pt.1, Soil Formation Pt.2

Soil Conservation, Soil Problems

More

Here are some additional resources on the web

http://www.hintze-online.com/sos/soils-online.html

http://nscss.org/ssource.html

http://www.bsyse.wsu.edu/~saxton/soilwatr/

If you have questions, comments, please send to

bbatke@worldnet.att.net

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