Agriculture Terms &Definitions Part -VI

Soil Texture: Refers to the coarseness or fineness of a soil. It is determined by the relative
proportion of various sized particles (sand, silt, and clay) in a soil.

Soil Type: A finer subdivision of a soil series. It includes all soils of a series which are similar in all
characteristics, including texture of the surface layer.

Species: One kind of plant.

Sow: Mature female hog.

Strip Cropping: Growing crops in long narrow strips across a sope approximately on a line of
contour, alternating dense-growing intertilled crops. This is sometimes done with crops grown
under government acreage allotments in order to increase yields per acre, since the intertilled area is
not included in the allotment. It is also done in some dryland areas to conserve moisture and reduce
the hazards of wind erosion.

Subsoiling: Breaking of compact subsoils without inverting them. This is done with a special
narrow cultivator shovel or chisel, which is pulled through the soil at a depth from 12 to 24 inches
and at spacings from 2 to 5 feet.

Summer Fallow: Land plowed up (usually in spring) and left unseeded through the summer.
This is done to let the land air out and rest until fall, when it is worked up and planted to a crop of
grain. May also be done to beak down organic matter or kill weeds.

Terminal Market: A metropolitan market which handles all agricultural commodities. The San
Francisco Wholesale Produce and Fruit Market is an example.

Top Dressing: Lime, fertilizer, or manure applied after the seedbed is ready, or after the plants are
up.

Topsoil: The layer of soil used for cultivation, which usually contains more organic matter than
underlying materials.

Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN): The sum of all nutrients in a feed that are digested by the
animal.

Transportation: The loss of water vapor from the leaves and stems of living plants to the
atmosphere.

Variety: A group of individuals within a species that differs from the rest of the species.

Vertical Integration: The combining of two or more successive steps in the production, processing and distributing processes under a single decision making body. A canner that produces some of his
own raw product, a group of farmers which acquires a cannery or a cotton gin, or a feed company
that owns the poultry are all examples of vertical integration.

Viticulture: The science and practice of vine growing: grape growing.

Water Rights (Riparian Rights): The rights of a person owning land containing or bordering on a
water course or other body of water in or to its banks, bed, or waters.

Water Table: The upper limit of the part of the soil or underlying rock material that is wholly
saturated with water. In some places an upper or perched water table may be separated from a lower one by a dry zone.

Windbreak: A strip of trees or shrubs serving to reduce the force of wind; any protective shelter
from the wind.YouTube