Agriculture Terms Important for Competitive exam

Agriculture Terms

Abiotic Factor: A non living component of the environment Biotic Factor such as soil nutrients, light, tire or moisture.

Adaptation:

(1) Any aspect of an organism or its parts that is Boundary of value in allowing the organism to withstand the
conditions of the environment.

(2) The evolutionary process by which a species genome and phenotype characteristics change over time in responto changes the environment.

Aerobic: Aerobic organisms require oxygen for their life processes.

(Agriculture Terms)

Agroecology: The science of applying ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems.

Agroecosystem: An agricultural system understood as an ecosystem.

Agroforestry: The practice of including trees in crop or animal production agroecosystems.

Allelopathy : An interference interaction in which a plant releases into the environment a compound that inhibits or stimulates the growth or development of other plants.

Alluvium: Soil that has been transported to its present location by water flow (alluvial soil)

Alpha Diversity: The variety of species in a particular location in one community or agroecosystem

Amensalism: An inter-organism interaction in which one organism negatively impacts another organism without receiving any direct benefit itself

Anaerobic: Anaerobic organisms do not require oxygen for their life processes, in fact oxygen is toxic to many of them. Most anaerobic organisms are bacteria or archaeans.

Aquaculture: the production of food and feed using aquatic agroecosystems

(Agriculture Terms)

Autotroph: An organism that satisfies its need for organic food molecules by using the energy of the sun, or of the oxidation of inorganic substances, to convert inorganic molecules into organic molecules. Green plants are autotrophs.

Beneficial Insects: Beneficial insects are predators, parasites, or competitors of insect pests, helping to regulate pest populations without harm to crops.

Beta Diversity: The difference in the assemblage of species from one location or habitat to another nearby location or habitat, or from one part of an agroecosystem to anather

Biogeochemical Cycle: The manner in which the atoms of an element critical to life (such as carbon, nitrogen, or phosphorus) move from the bodies of living organisms to the physical environment and back again.

Biogeochemistry: The study of biogeochemical cycling.

Biological Nitrogen Fixation: The fixation, by bacterial cells, of atmospheric Nitrogen gas into organic compounds useful for life. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria exist in the soil and in association and symbiosis with plants or fungi.

(Agriculture Terms)

Biomass: The mass of all the organic matter in a given system at a given point in time.

Biotic Factor: An aspect of the environment related to organisms or their interactions

Boundary Layer: A layer of air saturated with water vapor (from transpiration) that forms next to a leaf surf
when there is no air movement.

Buffer Zone: A less-intensively managed and less disturbed area at the margins of an agroecosystem that protects the adjacent natural system from the potential nepal impacts of agricultural activities and management

Bulk Density: The mass of soil per unit of volume.

(Agriculture Terms)

C:N Ratio: The ratio of carbon to nitrogen in a material. The decomposition of materials is regulated in part by this ratio, so materials with different C:N ratios are usually mixed to improve decomposition rates in composting. The C:N ratio for optimal biological activity is about 25:1, with higher values being nitrogen limited and lower values being carbon límited. The average C:N ratio for soils is about 10:1

C3 Pathway: The most common metabolic pathway for photosynthetic carbon fixation in plants.

C4 Pathway: A metabolic pathway for photosynthetic carbon fixation that is common in tropical plants that have high rates of growth and photosynthesis and are adapted to high temperatures, high light intensity, low co2, concentrations and low water availability. C4 metabolism is especially common in grass species.

CAM: (Crassulacean Acid Metabolism), a metabolic pathway adaptation of certain plants that allows them to take up CO, at night instead of during the day, greatly reducing transpirational water loss during photosynthesis. This type of metabolism is common in xerophytes.

Capillary Water: The water that fills the micropores of the soil and is held to soil particles with a force between 0.3 and 31 bars of suction. Much of this water (that portion held to particles with less than 15 bars of suction) is readily available to plant roots.

Carbon Dioxide Compensation Point: The concentration of carbon dioxide in a plant’s chloroplasts below which the amount of photosynthate produced fails to compensate for the amount of amount of photosynthate used in respiration.

Carbon Fixation: The part of the photosynthetic process in which carbon atoms are extracted from atmospheric carbon dioxide and used to make simple organic compounds that eventually become glucose.

Carbon Partitioning: The manner in which a plant allocates to different plant parts the photosynthate it produces.

Carbonaceous: Rich in carbon.

Carnivore: Literally, an organism that eats meat. Most carnivores are animals, but a few fungi, plants, and
protists are as well.

(Agriculture Terms)

Catabatic Warming: The process that occurs when a large air mass expands after having been forced over a mountain range and becomes warmer and dryer as a result of the expansion.

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