Nutrient Cycling: Quiz
'Slash and burn' is a common subsistence farming system in many of the world's tropical regions.
It involves manually clearing a small patch of rainforest and burning the fallen timber, prior to planting annual crops.
Answer the following question about this practice by selecting the statement you think is most correct...
Burning the fallen timber
releases nutrients from the ashed plant material
results in no loss of nutrients from the clearing
releases nutrients resulting in the loss of some via smoke, ash and runoff
try again
Yes, some nutrients are returned to the soil and some are lost from the clearing due to volatilisation, in smoke and ash, and via leaching and runoff. But Answer (c) is better.
No, although burning returns most of the nutrients in the timber to the soil, it also results in the loss of nutrients via volatilisation, in smoke and ash, and via leaching and runoff.
Yes, some nutrients are lost via these processes but the remainder (most) are returned to the soil.
Well done, you answered correctly. Use the 'next' button to proceed.