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.