Chapter 1

Question 1

– a Greek historian mentioned the phenomenal yields obtained by the Mesopotamians.

Answer 1

Herodotus

Question 2

– recommended the use of lime, ashes, marl and green manures, to enrich soil fertility.

Answer 2

Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79)

Question 3

– emphasized the usefulness of ashes, marl, clover, alfalfa and lupines to make soil more productive.

Answer 3

Columella

Question 4

– recommended crop rotations and intercropping with legumes to and suggested the application of burned pruning and ashes in the field.

Answer 4

Cato (234-149 BC)

Question 5

– the earliest record of soil improvement using green manures in china.

Answer 5

Chou Dynasty (~1000 NC)

Question 6

– thought that small particles were ingested by plants, and wrote the Book “Horse Hoeing Husbandry” and developed the horse hoe and the seed drill.

Answer 6

Jethro Tull and Francis Home (1674-1741)

Question 7

– introduced the “Humus Theory” that humus was the source of plant food.

Answer 7

J.G. Wallerius (1709-1785)

Question 8

– a Swiss chemist and plant physiologist who did work on gas exchange of plants and the nature and origin of salts in plants.

Answer 8

Nicolas Theodore de Saussure (1804)

Question 9

– a french chemicals and agricultural scientist established the first field plot experiments. Established the idea that plants need mineral nutrients for growth and development.

Answer 9

Jean-Baptiste Boussingault

Question 10

• a German agronomist who rejected the humus theory and argued that plants get nutrients from the soil, and found a variety of salts such as alkali nitrates, sulfates, chlorides and phosphates.

Answer 10

Carl Sprengel

Question 11

• proved that water was the sole nutrient of plants.

Answer 11

Jan Baptista Van Helmont (1577-1644)

Question 12

– father of fertilizer industry for his discovery of Nitrogen as essential plant nutrients. Found that carbon in plants comes from CO2 in the atmosphere Hydrogen and Oxygen comes from water and also formulated the “Law of Minimum”.

Answer 12

Justus Von Liebig (1803-1873)

Question 13

– In 1886, they discover Nitrogen fixation by certain microorganisms found in the Nodules of legume .

Answer 13

Hermann Wilfarth & Hermann Hellriegel

Question 14

– the Noble Prize of chemistry “in recognition for their contribution to the intervention and development of chemical high pressure methods.

Answer 14

Carl Bosch

Question 15

– the Noble Prize of chemistry “in recognition for their contribution to the intervention and development of chemical high pressure methods.

Answer 15

Carl Bosch