STANDARD COMPETENCIES:

 

 1. Use an understanding of soil forming factors and processes to determine how a soil is formed and what its characteristics might likely be.

 2. Recognize the various physical properties of soil and determine their affects on other soil quality characteristics.

 3. Demonstrate familiarity with soil-plant-water interactions and how the physical and chemical properties of the soil affect to these interactions.

 4. Demonstrate a basic understanding of soil microbiology and how soil microbes interact with plant and animal material in the soil.

 5. Demonstrate an understanding of soil fertility that includes an understanding of how soil colloids, soil pH, soil salinity and sodicity, water quality, and cation exchange capacity affect soil fertility.

 6. Demonstrate familiarity with the minerals that are essential plant nutrients, their interaction within the the soil and plants, and common fertilizer products used for their supplementation.

 7. Explain the principals of soil salinity problems concentrating on saline, sodic, and saline-sodic soils, and their reclamation or methods of dealing with these problem soils.

 

 TOPICAL OUTLINE:

 

 I. Soil development, taxonomy and classification

 II. Soil Physical Properties

 III. Soil Water

 IV. Soil erosion and control

 V. Organic Matter and Soil Biology

 VI. Tillage Systems and Environmental Concerns

 VII. Urban Soils

 VIII. Soil Colloids

 IX. Soil pH

 X. Soil Salinity

 XI. Soil fertility and nutrition

      a. Macronutrients

      b. Micronutrients

 XII. Fertilizers