A puffin's bill can hold up to twelve fish at a time!
Soil: The hidden universe where everything begins
Soil: The hidden universe where everything begins Soil is one of the building blocks of life and is
crucial for the growth of the food chain. It sustains the bacteria
and plant life that are at the base of the food chain. Soil forms
through the breaking down of rock by both the environment and by
bacteria. It contains the nutrients necessary for plants to grow.
Through agriculture, humans exploit the resources of the soil and
drain many of the nutrients. Farmers then have to replace the
nutrients through the use of chemical fertilizers. Cultivation of
the soil leads to its degradation, and if farmers are not careful
their use of soil will eventually make it unusable. Wheat is one of
the many types of crops grown in Canadian soil. As with all seeds,
wheat seeds need to be planted properly, and not too deeply, or
they will not grow. Today's farmers need to balance the
profitability of each crop with the possible degradation of the
topsoil that is essential to plant life and growth. One technique
to decrease degradation of the topsoil is to till the field less.
This creates less erosion of the land. However, tilling the land
less means that more weeds will grow, and more money will need to
be spent on weedkillers. There is a fine line between growing a
healthy and profitable crop and badly damaging the earth that crops
depend on. 19 JUNE 1999
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