Plant Propagation and Agriculture
This section describes how asexual reproduction occurs in plants. It also describes plant propagation and identifies which crops provide the major food supply for humans.
Vegetative Reproduction
1. The method of asexual reproduction used by many flowering plants is called.
2. What does vegetative reproduction enable a single plant that is well-adapted to the environment to do?
3. Vegetative reproduction includes the production of new plants from what three kinds of plant structures?
4. Why does vegetative reproduction enable plants to reproduce very quickly?
5. What do spider plants produce that allow them to reproduce vegetatively?
6. Is the following sentence true or false? New plants can grow from the leaves of a parent plant if the leaves fall to the ground and the conditions are right.
7. How do strawberry plants reproduce vegetatively?
8. How do bamboo plants reproduce asexually?
Plant Propagation
9. What do horticulturists use plant propagation for?
10. Why might a horticulturist not want a plant to reproduce sexually by seeds?
11. Circle the letter of what a cutting must have to form roots when placed in a rooting mixture.
a. Several stolons c. Buds containing meristematic tissue
b. A taproot d. Buds without meristematic tissue
12. When a piece of stem or a lateral bud is cut from a parent and attached to another plant, what are the cut piece and the plant to
which it is attached called?
13. When stems are used as scions, the process is called.
14. What is the process called when buds are used as scions?
15. In what kind of cases do growers use grafting and budding?
Agriculture
16. Circle the letter of when evidence suggests that agriculture developed in many parts of the world.
a. about 1-2 million years ago c. about 10,000-12,000 years ago
b. about 1000-2000 years ago d. about 100,000 years ago
17. What are three crop plants that most people of the world depend on for the bulk of their food supply?
18. The food taken from crops such as wheat, rice, and corn is stored in their.
19. What are the four crops that 80 percent of all U.S. cropland is used to grow?
20. What important crops were unknown in Europe before they were introduced there from the Americas?
21. What are two ways in which the efficiency of agriculture has been improved?
22. How has the use of pesticides and fertilizers affected crop yields?