Final Exam Questions

Hi Maja, I'm slightly confused about question 5 on the 2005 final exam: List and briefly explain inputs and losses of soil phosphorus and sulfur.

I got that soil phosphorus will be lost through plant removal, erosion of phosphorus-carrying soil particles, and phosphorus dissolved in surface runoff water. However, I'm not too entirely sure what the inputs are.

Also, I looked all around online and in the textbook and was only able to find the following for inputs and outputs of soil sulfur, are these correct? Inputs: Use of highly concentrated fertilizers, mineralization of organic matter in release of plant-available sulfur Losses: Intensive cropping systems that increase crop yields causing more removal of sulfur from the field

Thanks for your help, Sophia

The most efficient way to answer this question would be to go to the lecture notes from March 14 and to check P & S cycles that are included there. All the losses are indicated by the orange lines, while all the inputs are indicated by blue lines.

If those slides are too small, you can also access them at our SoilWeb200 online tool (http://soilweb200.landfood.ubc.ca/). P cycle is available at http://soilweb200.landfood.ubc.ca/soil-biology/nutrient-cycles/2-phosphorus-p/, while S cycle is available at http://soilweb200.landfood.ubc.ca/soil-biology/nutrient-cycles/3-sulphur-s/