Key words

• Barrier crop

  a crop that is grown around another crop in order to protect the original crop
• Cloning

  an artificial form of asexual reproduction
• Companion crops

  crops that are grown together to benefit one or both crops

  e.g to provide nutrients, control pests or attract beneficial insects
• Contact action pesticide


  pesticide that kills pests by coming in contact with them after spraying.

  they are not absorbed and translocated around the crops
• Contour ploughing


  land is cultivated by ploughing horizontal furrows along the contours of the land

  used to control soil erosion
• Crop rotation

  the practise of growing a different crop in a field on a cycle of three, four or five years
• CSS


  Countryside Stewardship Scheme
• Efficiency


  measure of the amount of product compared with the inputs

  -> expressed a a percentage
• Extensive Agriculture


  yield is achieved with low levels of input over a large area.

  -> low productivity and high efficiency
• Food conversion ratios (FCRs)


  measure of the efficiency with which an organism converts its food into its own increasing biomass
• Genetic engineering / Genetic Modification (GM)


  the method of altering an organism's genetic makeup by artificially introducing genes from another organism, often form another species
• Gibberellins


  a group of plant hormones
• intensive agriculture


  yield is achieved with high levels of input

  -> high productivity and low efficiency
• Legumes


  plants with symbiotic nitrogen fixing bacteria in root nodules
• monoculture


  the growth of a single type of crop, usually over a large area
• Mulch


  material placed on the soil surface to reduce evaporation losses and reduce weed growth
• Multi-cropping


  a form of polyculture where 2 or more different crops are grown in an area at the same time
• Neonicotinoids 


  a widely used group of insecticides

  -> they have been linked with the death of bees
• permaculture


  an agricultural system that incorporates the principles of natural ecosystems
• ploughing


  the cultivation of the soil by turning over the surface layer
• polyculture


  growing more than one species of crop in the same area at the same time
• sterile male techniques


  method of insect pest control that uses the release of males that have been sterilised
• strip cropping


  growth of more than one crop in alternating narrow strips so that the different sowing and harvesting times reduce soil erosion
• terracing


  the replacement of a sloping landscape by the creation of a series of narrow horizontal stepped strips

  -> used to reduce soil erosion
• transgenics


  the process of artificially transferring genetic material from one organism to an individual of another species
• vegetative propagation


  asexual reproduction
• windbreaks


  hedgerows and rows of trees that reduce wind velocity to reduce soil erosion