Long-term Research to Improve Productivity of Dryland Soils By Verlan Cochran (Soil Scientist, USDA, ARS, NPARL) Rene France (Biological Technician, USDA, ARS NPARL) The pluses of traditional tillage practices Agricultural expansion in the Great Plains started with some form of aggressive tillage (usually the moldboard plow). Although tillage practices have changed over the last several decades, some form of tillage is still practiced on most agricultural lands of the northern Great Plains. Traditional crop management in much of the semiarid Great Plains evolved into a wheat-fallow rotation and is widely practiced today...

What is soil? Soil, is made from rocks that break apart or wear away over many years. This is referred to as weathering. It may take 100 to 1,000 years for 1 cm of soil to form through weathering. Soil also contains air, water, and humus, the decayed remains of dead animals and plants...

What are insects? Insects are animals that have: -1 pair of antennae -2 pairs of wings (if any) -3 pairs of legs -3 body parts: head, thorax and abdomen - and an exoskeleton ("exo" means their skeleton is on the outside!...

Pioneering naturalists, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark eagerly accepted the opportunity to explore Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, a vast expanse of inland territory virtually unknown to the European settlers of this new country. During their 2-year, 4-month journey (1804-1806) they and their small crew traversed the wilds of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, seeking a water route to the Pacific that never materialized. On their way they collected and/or identified more than 170 different species unknown to their supporters back East, a third of those found this side of the Continental Divide. That number would have been greater had a flood not destroyed a cache of plants at the Great Falls of the Missouri...

Below is a list of some more fun websites for you to check out! All you have to do is click on a title and you're on your way...

Ask Dr. Watts a question! [Are you interested in science that relates to agriculture, and have a question to ask?] Send your e-mail question to: . ([ Note:] Please, don't send questions for assignments that are "due tomorrow!" And for science project ideas relating to agriculture, please refer to the Sci4Kids page...

Excerpts from "Feeding a World of 10 Billion People: The Miracle Ahead," by Dr. Norman E. Borlaug...

Gateway to the world of biocontrol Its a typical U.S. government building: Full of offices, desks, computers, paperwork, and ringing phones. And, oh, yesplenty of wasps, flies, fungi and bacteria. That's "typical"? Yes, because this government building is the European Biological Control Laboratory, or EBCL...

stories without boundaries careers science fair projects for...

Like to hunt for bugs? Get dirty? Explore wild places? Then you might want to be an entomologist! You might even get to go on a foreign expedition, like some scientists with the Agricultural Research Service did recently. They went to Nepal and India to look for certain types of insects. But its not all fun and games--they had to cope with leeches, traffic jams, wild rhinos and illness to get their bugs...