Practical Skills, Field and Laboratory Activities, and Project Work
What this domain covers
This domain tests the practical operations a student must perform and record: seed testing, nursery work, soil sampling, compost making, insect and disease specimen handling, sprayer calibration and project reporting.
Core rules and concepts
- Seed testing: purity, germination and moisture. Germination percentage = (germinated seeds / seeds tested) x 100. Pure live seed percentage = purity x germination / 100.
- Soil sampling: collect from 8-10 spots in a zigzag pattern at 0-15 cm depth, mix, quarter to about 500 g, air dry in shade, label with field, date and depth.
- Nursery and field work: seedbed preparation, seed treatment, sowing, transplanting, spacing, fertilizer application and irrigation.
- Compost and vermicompost preparation, azolla culture and mushroom cultivation are common project activities.
- Sprayer calibration, insect collection with killing jars and pinned labels, and disease specimen preservation.
- Laboratory safety: apron, gloves, no eating or drinking, careful handling of chemicals and glassware.
Worked example
A seed lot has 95 per cent purity and 80 per cent germination. Pure live seed = 0.95 x 0.80 = 0.76, that is 76 per cent. If the recommendation is 100 kg per hectare of pure live seed, the actual seed to sow = 100 / 0.76 = 131.6 kg, about 132 kg per hectare. The reasoning accounts for inert matter and dead seeds together, which a simple germination test alone does not.
Traps that cost marks
- Collecting soil from a single spot or from a fertilizer band.
- Sending a wet, unlabelled sample to the laboratory.
- Recording germination too early, before the standard test period ends.
- Writing project records from memory instead of from field observations.