Hey there! Please go get your interactive notebook! Please read the board!

Monoculture

Polyculture

What are the tradeoffs of monoculture?  Benefits:  Easy to manage  Provides uniformity  Can be grown by few people as long as they have large machines  Lack of diversity = potential loss of crop to disease/pest  Need for pesticides  Need for inorganic fertilizer because crop takes particular nutrient from soil  Loss of biodiversity from field edges/cover crops

Monocultures are a banquet for pests!

What are the tradeoffs of monoculture?  Benefits:  Easy to manage  Provides uniformity  Can be grown by few people as long as they have large machines  Lack of diversity = potential loss of crop to disease/pest  Need for pesticides  Need for inorganic fertilizer because crop takes particular nutrient from soil  Loss of biodiversity from field edges/cover crops

Fertilizers Nov 14

Each crop needs some of the same nutrients...  Nitrogen  Phosphorus  Potassium  Trace elements  But each crop takes the same nutrients out of the soil each time it’s grown.  Example: corn uses a LOT of nitrogen

So why do monocultures require lots of fertilizer?

Make a double bubble to compare: Synthetic fertilizer  Made from natural gas  Help plants grow  Examples:  Miracle Gro  Ammonium nitrate  Scott’s turf builder Organic fertilizer  Created from an ecological process or organism  Help plants grow  Examples:  Fish emulsion  Blood meal  Bone meal  compost

Fertilizer nutrients – what do those numbers mean?  Nitrogen  Phosphorus  Potassium

Houston, we have a problem (and it’s linked to fertilizers!)

Next notebook page: Eutrophication Nov 14

Eutrophication p 137  Each pair/tri needs a white board, 2 markers, and an eraser – send a runner now!  Re-read the paragraph on artificial eutrophication.  List the steps of eutrophication in your notebook.  Compare your list with your neighbor  Use your notes to draw a cartoon of the process on the white boards.

Plant nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) cause eutrophication

Other sources of plant nutrients  Untreated sewage  Manure from livestock  Pet wastes

Hypoxic zones “Dead zones” – form in the summer Gulf of Mexico

So what can YOU do?

Eutrophication  Which pollutants are involved?  What are the sources of these pollutants?  How are monocultures involved in eutrophication?  What are the effects of eutrophication?  Why does the dead zone form in the Gulf near New Orleans?  Why should we be worried about the dead zone?