• Reductionism often gives you the ______answer to the
_________question, while holism often gives the _______answer
to the ___________question.
• Briefly describe secondary succession in a temperate biome, in
terms of vegetation
• Describe the differences between desert, steppe, prairie,
savannah, and forest, and rangeland designations in terms of
precipitation.
• Why does Mike think that rangeland grazing may be the most
ecological form of agriculture?
• Draw a diagram of a grazing and detrital food chain.
• How is primary production and secondary production measured
specifically in some of the studies described?
• Write out the chemical formula for how plants convert solar
energy to chemical energy
• Write out the chemical formula for how plants, animals, bacteria,
etc generate energy from sugars
• In your own words, describe how the first two laws of
thermodynamics relate to inefficient energy transfer from a plant
to a cow.
• Describe what photosynthetic active radiation is compared to
solar radiation. How do plants respond to different wavelengths?
• What is photoperiod and describe in detail how you can get a
flowering response from a plant during the summer on a
molecular level
• What is an ecological constraint, and how does it relate to
“agriculture”?
• If given energy content data, be able to identify specific ecological
constraints (both primary and secondary) that are responsible for
the reduction of energy transfer.
• How might overgrazing or under grazing effect energy transfer in
terms of primary and secondary production?
• Be able to describe the fundamental ecological dilemma.
Describe a case study that demonstrates this dilemma, in detail.
This includes the effects of lenient versus severe grazing on the
grazing and detrital food chain.
• How does solar energy capture, forage harvest efficiency, and
conversion efficiency (by the cow) change as grazing intensity
changes, on an individual animal and unit area basis? Be able to
interpret these graphs!
• In detail, describe the grazing optimization hypothesis
• What is the difference between extensive and intensive grazing
systems? Provide specific intensive practices, and the biotic and
abiotic limitations that they are trying to overcome. What must
you be aware of when attempting do so?
• If given a picture of a plant, be able to identify the following:
adventitious roots, crown, nodes, internodes, collars, blade,
tillers, stolons, and rhizomes
• What is the difference between an extravaginal and an
intravaginal tiller?
• Be able to identify apical meristems (shoot apex) and intercalary
meristems.
• Describe the process of stem elongation of a grass tiller from the
vegetative state until the inflorescence is emerged.
• Are grasses monocots or dicots? Describe germination in detail.
Draw a grass seed and identify structures that are important in
germination.
• Identify areas in a grass plant that can be grazed and grow back
and areas that will be damaged by grazing. How do these areas
change throughout the growing grass season.
• How can cool season and warm season grasses potentially
complement each other in supplying forages for ruminants
throughout the grazing season?
• In your own words, be able to describe and/or draw photosynthesis
using the following terms: solar energy, chemical energy,
chlorophyll, ATP, NADPH, 3PG, glucose, rubisco, chloroplasts,
thylakoids, stroma.
• In your own words, be able to describe and/or draw
photorespiration using the following terms: rubisco, PEP,
oxaloacetate, carbon dioxide, three carbon, four carbon, affinity for
carbon dioxide, “shuttling” back into the cell, waste, efficiency,
photosynthesis, stomata, day and night, siesta, temperature.
• Make a table comparing and contrasting C4 and C3 grasses in
terms of the following: PEP, rubisco, protein level, nitrogen
needs/dry matter, leaf structures, mesophyll cells, sugar levels,
starches versus fructans.
• Why does Mike say that photosynthesis itself doesn’t generate
chemical energy for plant cellular processes (like maintenance and
growth). What does photosynthesis generate? How does
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photosynthesis generate it? (see earlier question). Instead of
photosynthesis, what process generates the necessary chemical
energy needed for plant (and animal) cellular processes?
Make sure you understand that plants are able to maintain life and
build structures by using glucose to make ATP via respiration.
How does the plant get glucose?
What type of sugar can be translocated to different parts of the
plant?
What happens when photosynthesis exceeds the needs for growth
and maintenance of the plant? How does a plant get energy to grow
immediately after defoliation?
What parts of the plant have priority in terms of energy demands?
How are they met when not enough photosynthesis occurs in that
particular portion of the plant?
Be able to interpret a basic grass growth curve (biomass on y axis
and time on x axis). Where is the early vegetative portion, late
vegetative portion, early reproductive portion and mature portion?
What happens when you harvest at these different stages?
Be able to interpret and explain energy reserve and growth curve.
What happens to root structures when you overgraze? Why?
Why would overgrazing in the fall prevent good growth the
following spring?
Briefly describe the life cycle of Mel Wheeling’s stocker operation
in terms of time of year, initial cattle weights, winter feeding,
spring grazing, who he gets his cattle from, and where he sells his
cattle. How does he measure secondary production? What are his
average daily gains in different parts of this life cycle?
Review some of the cattle procedures Mel performs on his cattle.
How does Mel maintain fertility on his pastures? Why does he
need to do this?
What is Mel’s initial stocking density, in terms of animal units per
acre? How does this change as he sells the animals?
What type of grass species are part of the mix on the turf grass
farm we visited?
What type of soil was the turf grass farm on, and what crops did
Jeff and his family grow, prior to making it a turf grass farm?
What was Jeff doing this year that was new in terms of
management? Why was he doing it?
• How does the turf farm encourage tillering? How much nitrogen
does he need to grow a crop of sod? Why so much?
• Why is looking at the germination rate on a seed bag important?
Why does a pound of one grass seed have more or less seeds than a
pound of another type of grass seed?
• How does Ned provide native plants to his customer? What are
some of the challenges that he faces? How does he attempt to
reduce artificial selection?