Inaugural Lectures
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Inaugural Lectures (Soil Science)
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- ItemOpen AccessMaking the Soil Nutritious to Plants(Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 1985-12-10) Aduayi, E. A.Plants are able to live without MAN, but MAN cannot live without plants. If, therefore, MAN has to survive on earth, he has to ensure that the medium in which plants grow, namely the soil, is kept nutritionally balanced. It is on this premise that my lecture will be based. And taking cognizance of the expected heterogeneity of my audience, I will try not to be too technical. With this in view, I shall attempt to develop the topic by posing the questions: What is a soil? And how does the soil acquire its fertility status for the nourishment of plants?
- ItemOpen AccessSoil and Nigerian Food Security(Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 1997-10-14) Adepetu, J. A.Soil is the most important factor in agricultural production: its function as the medium for plant growth underscores this importance. At any location suitable for plant growth, the yield of crops, even varieties with the most high yielding potentials, depend on soil quality and soil management practices applied to cultivating the crop. For this reason, we must regard soil as our resource base for a, sustainable future. Among natural resources, soils are exceedingly responsive to human influence. With careful management we can improve their properties and productive potentials. But much more easily, soils can be destroyed and rendered less productive by misuse and thoughtless development.
- ItemOpen AccessSoils, Civilisations and the March of Time(Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 1978-01-09) Ashaye, T. I.Most of the efforts of man to understand how the earth was formed and the nature of it have only yielded the following: first, there was a molten mass called "magma". This magma cooled leading to barren landscapes of mountains, deserts and steaming lava fields. The earliest forms of life were very primitive. Land plants appeared on the earth surface 400 million years ago and mammals 250 million years ago. Homo sapiens emerged within the last million years. On arrival man began to domesticate animals and till the ground in order to cultivate food crops. The soil referred to in this lecture can therefore not be different in definition from what Homo sapiens worked upon but the period of his activities and the impact of these activities on human culture and progress can only be extracted from recorded history. This period is more likely to be much shorter than one million years.