CCA Crop Management Systems 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which cropping system is most effective at breaking pest and disease cycles while maintaining soil health?
- Continuous monoculture
- Crop rotation with diverse species (Correct answer)
- Intensive tillage between crops
- Applying broad-spectrum pesticides every season
Correct answer: Crop rotation with diverse species
Diverse crop rotation interrupts host-specific pest and pathogen cycles while contributing varied organic matter to soil.
Question 2: In a no-till corn-soybean rotation, surface residue management primarily affects which of the following?
- Atmospheric nitrogen fixation rates
- Soil temperature and moisture in early spring (Correct answer)
- Subsoil drainage capacity
- Grain protein content at harvest
Correct answer: Soil temperature and moisture in early spring
Surface residue acts as insulation, keeping soils cooler and retaining moisture in spring, which can delay planting in cold climates.
Question 3: A farmer notices yield drag after several years of continuous corn. Which practice BEST addresses this issue without switching to a different crop?
- Increasing seeding rate by 20%
- Subsoil tillage to break compaction layers
- Applying additional foliar nitrogen at V6
- Rotating to soybeans for at least one year (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Rotating to soybeans for at least one year
Continuous corn yield drag is largely caused by pathogen buildup and allelopathic residue effects that only a rotation break can disrupt.
Question 4: What is the primary agronomic benefit of using cover crops in a cash crop system?
- They provide harvestable grain in off-season months
- They prevent soil erosion and improve soil organic matter (Correct answer)
- They eliminate the need for starter fertilizer
- They fix atmospheric phosphorus for subsequent crops
Correct answer: They prevent soil erosion and improve soil organic matter
Cover crops protect the soil surface from erosion and decompose to add organic matter, improving soil biology and structure.
Question 5: Strip-till is best described as a system that:
- Tills the entire field surface to a depth of 12 inches
- Tills only narrow bands where seeds will be placed, leaving inter-row residue intact (Correct answer)
- Removes all surface residue before planting
- Combines herbicide application with deep subsoiling in one pass
Correct answer: Tills only narrow bands where seeds will be placed, leaving inter-row residue intact
Strip-till disturbs only the planting zone, preserving inter-row residue for erosion control while warming the seedbed.
Question 6: Which factor most limits the adoption of organic crop management systems on highly productive corn-belt soils?
- Lack of available cover crop seed varieties
- The 3-year transition period with restricted input use and potential yield loss (Correct answer)
- Inability to grow legumes in the Midwest
- Organic certification prohibits the use of GPS guidance systems
Correct answer: The 3-year transition period with restricted input use and potential yield loss
The mandatory 3-year transition period without organic premium pricing creates an economic barrier that deters many conventional producers.
Question 7: Allelopathy in crop management refers to:
- The attraction of beneficial insects to flowering crops
- Chemical inhibition of one plant species by compounds released from another (Correct answer)
- The use of crop diversity to suppress weeds mechanically
- Nitrogen transfer between legume and grass species
Correct answer: Chemical inhibition of one plant species by compounds released from another
Allelopathy involves biochemical interference where plant-released compounds suppress germination or growth of neighboring species.
CCA Crop Management Systems 2
Which cropping system is most effective at breaking pest and disease cycles while maintaining soil health?