Download Chapter 10 Review What do you think would be the effect on nutrient

Chapter 10 Review
1. What do you think would be the effect on nutrient uptake of removing all the leaves from
a plant?
2. Name four soil conditions that inhibit nutrient uptake and describe why they do so.
3. Discuss how we classify the 17 essential elements and the reasons behind each class.
4. Discuss the four primary pools of essential elements in the soil. Pick one of them and
describe possible consequences if that pool were to suddenly disappear.
5. Why might two soils with identical percentages of clay have different cation exchange
capacities? Explain your answer.
6. At any given moment, where in the soil (in what pool) are the nutrients a plant is actively
taking up? How about the nutrients it will take up a in few hours from the present? How
about some time in the more distant future?
7. What sorts of nutrients, in their ionic form, will be nearest to soil colloid particles? What
sorts farther away?
8. A mathematical challenge: The CEC of a soil is simply the sum of its components.
Assume we have a loamy sand soil that is 5 percent montmorillinite clay, with a CEC of
80 cmol per kilogram, and is 3 percent organic matter with a CEC of 200 cmol per
kilogram. The rest is silt, sand, and coarse fragments. What is the CEC contribution of
each component, and what is the total CEC of this soil? What does this say about the
importance of organic matter in sandy soils?
9. Describe the basic structure of silicate clays, and explain the difference between
expanding clays and others.
10. Explain why kaolinite has a lower CEC than do smectites.
11. Using information from this chapter, explain why tropical soils are often less fertile than
temperate-climate soils.
12. Several problems with vegetable and fruit crops are caused by calcium shortages in the
developing edible part, and they tend to happen as the soil dries. Why might soil drying
contribute to such problems?