Jesse

1)Monoculture is a process when you only grow one or single crop over a wide area.

Four advantages to monoculture are: -Reduce plant competition for nutrients, space, and solar radiation -Control of undesirable (unprofitable) organisms, -Reduction of costs by limitation of specialized machinery required for arable operations -Maximize profit from the growing of high gross margin crops.

Four disadvantages to monoculture are -Requirements for successful monoculture are more demanding of management skills. -Closer attention to soil erosion is necessary. -Soil structure problems can become severe. -The farmer is completely dependent on chemical insecticides and similar methods of controlling insects and diseases.

3) The environmental percentages of sprayed pesticides is over 98% insecticides and 95% of herbicides reach a destination other than their target species, including nontarget species, air, water, bottom sediments, and food. Pesticide contaminates land and water when it escapes from production sites and storage tanks, when it runs off from fields, when it is discarded, when it is sprayed aerially, and when it is sprayed into water to kill algae.

Normal inputs such as fertilizer and labor tend to increase output directly; pest control agents rather reduce potential crop losses. This can lead to overestimation of the productivity of damage control agents in traditional specifications.

2. Why do monocultures require large inputs of weed killers and pesticides? In monoculture systems, the conditions for pesticides are stable. Monoculture contributes much to the problems caused by pesticide use. Since there is only one kind of crop grown, pesticides usually stay in the same area the crop was originally growing. When there is greater pesticide use in monoculture systems there is a greater chance of the crop having no development in its growth. The constant exposure of insects to the same pesticides over and over again makes them resistant to such chemicals that no matter how much will be poured on the field they will continue to survive and reproduce.

4. What is genetic engineering and why is it controversial? Genetic Engineering is the direct manipulation of an organisms DNA using latest DNA technology. Its considered moral controversy because some people is against mutation and believe its unhuman or unfair to those being tested on.

6.) Crop protection products help make sustainable use of natural resources; maximizing productivity on the farmland that we have means crop protection is biodiversity protection – more food, less farm.

7.) For many centuries, humans have deliberately cultivated plants with desirable mutations through selective breeding— choosing plants with the best traits and breeding them together. We manipulate plants so that disease and insects don’t affect the plant. Celery plants with elevated levels of psoralens suffer less damage from disease and insects and appeal more to consumers, and therefore, were selectively bred in the 1980s. Unfortunately, workers harvesting or packaging high psoralen-producing celery developed severe skin rashes as a result, and the celery strain was subsequently removed from the market.

GENE BANKS -There are over 1400 gene banks worldwide - Seeds grow better in a gene bank away from environment, away from bugs and diseases. -The are carefully cleaned, dried, and placed in coolers where they sit and grow, some are left for over 100 years. -In one year, wheat farmers lost over $100 million dollars due to either weather conditions or pests.

VAVILOV -The gene center is in Russia, it was the first center and is one of the world’s biggest. -To date they have collected 380,00 gene types from 2,500 plant species. -Russia holds 25%b of this collection

Who is Nikolai I. Vavilov? -He was the foremost plant geographer of his time. -He took part in over 100 collections in 64 countries. -He started an office in New York where the send collected in the U.S. were sent to this office then shipped back to Russia.