Improving food production, microorganisms & food. AS Biology Unit 2 OCR

Making Food priduction More Efficient
Plants
Improve plant growth rate
Increase yield from each plant
Reduce loss of crops from diseases & plants
Makes harvesting easier by standardising plant sizes
Improve plant response to fertilisers

Animals
Improve rate of growth
Increase productivity
Increase resistance to disease

Selective Breeding - Stages
Isolation
Artificial selection
Inbreeding or Line Breeding

Using Chemicals
Fertilisers - replace minerals in soil
Minerals may have been removed by previous crops
Increase rate of growth & overall size of crops

Pesticides - Kill Organisms that cause diseases in crops
Diseases would reduce yield or kill crop
Reduce effect of fungal growth in leaves or roots
Animals can also be treated - kill ticks on skin

Antibiotics
Reduce spread of disease among intensively farmed animals

Microorganisms & food spoilage
   Visable growth if microorganims on food - fungi growth - moulds
   Microorganisms use external digestion - release enzymes into food & absorb nutrients released by breakdown - food smells sweet as sugars released from carbohydrates - food eveentually reduced to…