On your way back from Mars, your vehicle crashes on a mountain top in the high A
ID: 802502 • Letter: O
Question
On your way back from Mars, your vehicle crashes on a mountain top in the high Andes of Peru where you are stranded for a year before NASA finds you. You walk from the crash site to the village of Accha Alta, at 4,000 meters (13,120 feet) elevation. The two main crops in the region are potatoes and corn. After talking to the villagers, you find out that they only grow potatoes around the village at 4,000 meters elevation, and they grow both corn and potatoes at lower elevations: 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) and below. Having taken 570, you wonder several things: a. Why don’t they grow both corn and potatoes next to their village, when they do grow both at lower elevation on the mountain? b. Is competition between potatoes and corn more of a problem than insect damage? So you decide to do a field experiment with the help of the local farmers. Your plan is to use MANIPULATIVE FIELD EXPERIMENTS to answer questions (a) and (b). You have 20 1-acre fields (on 500-year-old Inca terraces) available for the experiment, you have plenty of seed potatoes and seeds of maize, and you have a supply of insecticide. a. Describe your experimental treatments b. Describe what you plan to measure in each of the treatments c. Describe and draw graphs of what the data would look like in your treatments: i. If interspecific competition has the largest effect on crop yield ii. If the physical environment has the largest effect on crop yield iii. If herbivory by insects has the largest effect on crop yield d. How might your results help explain why the villagers don’t grow corn next to their village at 4000m elevation?
Explanation / Answer
If i have a field of 201 acer and i have to conduct an experiment on the potato and corn field productivity,then i will keep in mind that threr are a number of factors affect the production of crops,like
1. Climate
2. Carbon dioxide assimilation
3. Air temperature
4. Photoperiod
5. Solar radiations
6. Tropical area
7. Insects which can affect crops
8. Elevation
There are some minute factors which also affect the soil type like
1. Leaf area
2. Dry matter content
As the villagers are growing potatoes at 4000 m height and above because we know that on mountains the nights are cold and days are warm, also for potato crop the sail should be well drained. So at height of 4000m the conditions are well suited for potatoes crop .also the rain fall on mountain affect the type of crop.
It needs the water percolation soil. At the area of elfin forest type
On the other hand corn crop can be best produce in cloud forest type. Mainly corn, beans and squash can be well produce in these types of soil. Corn can not be grow properly as we go on higher elevation, because the climate conditions will not suit as it suits to potato crop.
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