Certified Crop Adviser with Sustainability Specialty Conservation & Regenerative Agriculture: practice questions

1 · Residue retention and mulching · hard

Why has straw burning persisted in rice-wheat systems of north-west India despite bans?

1. Farmers are unaware that burning causes smoke, so awareness campaigns alone will stop the practice
2. The short gap between crops, machinery costs and economics make burning the quickest option
3. Burning is required by wheat seed companies as a condition of seed sale
4. Rice straw cannot be decomposed by any soil organism, so it must be burned

2 · Cover crops and green manures · easy

A crop grown after the main crop mainly to take up leftover soil nitrogen and reduce leaching is called:

1. A cash crop
2. A catch crop
3. A trap crop
4. A nurse crop

3 · Crop diversification and rotations · easy

The yield gain of a crop grown after a different crop, compared with growing it continuously even with adequate nitrogen, is called:

1. The edge effect
2. The rotation effect
3. The greenhouse effect
4. The Allee effect

4 · Crop diversification and rotations · medium

In southern Australia, which crops are commonly grown as break crops before wheat?

1. Canola and pulses
2. Wheat and barley
3. Rice and sugarcane
4. Cotton and tobacco

5 · Crop diversification and rotations · hard

Despite agronomic benefits, rice-wheat farmers in north-west India rarely diversify. Which explanation fits the evidence?

1. Alternative crops cannot grow at all in the hot climate of north-west Indian plains
2. Diversification is banned by state law in all of the rice-growing districts of the region
3. Procurement and price support favour rice and wheat; markets for alternatives are weaker
4. Rice and wheat need no water, so they are the cheapest crops to grow

6 · Crop diversification and rotations · hard

Which change adds diversity in time to a maize-wheat rotation most directly?

1. Adding a legume cover crop in the fallow between harvest and sowing
2. Switching to a different maize hybrid of the same maturity group
3. Increasing the fertiliser rate on both maize and wheat crops
4. Ploughing more deeply before both crops in the rotation

7 · Effects on yields: evidence by climate and soil · hard

Giller and colleagues (2009) titled their paper on CA and African smallholders 'the heretics' view' because they argued that:

1. CA should be made compulsory for all African smallholder farmers through national law
2. Benefits were oversold, given residue competition, weeds, labour and early losses
3. CA always doubles smallholder yields in the very first season after adoption
4. CA has no effect on erosion or on soil water anywhere on the African continent

8 · Managed and adaptive grazing · hard

Which claim about holistic or adaptive grazing is most contested by rangeland scientists?

1. That stocking rate influences the amount of forage available to grazing animals
2. That rest periods allow key plant species to regrow during the growing season
3. That it can reverse desertification widely and offset much of global emissions
4. That water points and fencing can help spread grazing pressure across a large ranch

9 · Managed and adaptive grazing · medium

Stocking density differs from stocking rate in that stocking density refers to:

1. The number of animals on a given area at one time
2. The number of animals per hectare averaged over a whole year
3. The weight of forage eaten per animal per day
4. The number of paddocks on the farm

10 · Verifying regenerative claims in supply chains · medium

Satellite remote sensing is most useful in regenerative verification for:

1. Measuring soil carbon to 30 cm with credit-grade precision
2. Replacing all soil sampling in carbon crediting
3. Counting earthworms in each field from space
4. Checking practices such as winter cover and tillage across many fields