Graduate Take-Home Exam

This exam is open-book, open-notes. Properly attribute words or ideas of other people (published or not). Please do not collaborate on your responses; let me know if you require clarification or additional information. Submit your responses, using an alias, by 24 March 2003 at noon. Type your answers (double-spaced), and adhere strictly to the indicated length limits.

1. With respect to overall management of the NRCS Plant Materials Center, describe a specific method that is being used or that could be used to link science and management. [15 points; 200 words or fewer]

2. Rangeland management has strived to create and maintain homogeneous conditions on rangelands. To maximize biological diversity of native species, it apears that we should seek to maximize heterogeneity. Resolve this paradox, with explicit consideration to scale and a focus on southern Arizona. State any assumptions you make about livestock operations. [35 points; 400 words or fewer]

1. Differentiate between viable seed and germinable seed. [4 points]

2. List three different morphological parameters that can be used as indicators of seedling tolerance to stress. [3 points]

3. Describe how each of the parameters you listed in the previous question is measured on bare-root conifer seedlings. [6 points]

4. Describe the seedling with the following seedling description code: 2-0 DF B-50-10-2.5-034 [8 points]

5. Differentiate between the following three classes of seeds, as explained by Bruce Munda at the NRCS Plant Material Center in Tucson: source-identified, selected, tested. [6 points]

6. Name and describe one piece of equipment that is used to harvest wildland seeds. [3 points]

7. Name and describe one piece of equipment that is used to clean wildland seeds. [3 points]

8. Name and describe one piece of equipment that is used to plant wildland seeds. [3 points]

9. Name and briefly describe the most common 3-pasture system used for grazing livestock in southeastern Arizona. [4 points]

10. Why do many ranchers in southeastern Arizona use the 3-pasture system you described above, rather than just grazing each pasture year-around with a single herd? Provide specific reasons. [4 points]

11. At the Anvil Ranch in the Altar Valley, the King family does not use this system. Describe the livestock-grazing system they use. [4 points]

12. What are the two leading priorities on wildfires, according to Mark Pater (of the Bureau of Land Management)? [4 points]

    According to Mark Pater, the upper San Pedro River (above the "narrows") was primarily a meandering cienega in the mid-1800s. The Bureau of Land Management would like to maintain the gallery forest that has developed since the mid-1800s along this stretch of the river.

13. Why? [3 points]

14. How, specifically, are they proposing to do so? [3 points]

15. Which of the following harvest-regeneration systems employs a series of tree removals near the end of the rotation? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. Clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

16. Which of the following harvest-regeneration systems has the least potential for genetic alteration of trees from one generation to the next? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

17. Which of the following harvest-regeneration systems has the greatest potential for genetic improvement of trees from one generation to the next? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

18. Which of the following harvest-regeneration systems can be used to produce even-aged stands of shade-tolerant species? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

19. Which of the following harvest-regeneration systems produces uneven-aged stands? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

20. Which harvest-regeneration system is rarely used on conifers, but commonly used with angiosperms? [3 points; select the single best response]
    a. clearcut
    b. coppice (without standards)
    c. seed-tree
    d. shelterwood
    e. single-tree selection
    

21. Differentiate between release cuts and improvement cuts. [4 points]

22. Differentiate between sanitation and salvage. [4 points]

23. Define and briefly describe one of the other intermediate treatments we discussed in class (i.e., do not consider sanitation or salvage for this question). [4 points]

24. Dan Robinett pointed out the absence of headcuts on uplands at the King Ranch, in contrast to the presence of headcuts on the adjacent Palo Alto Ranch. To what, specifically, did he attribute the differences in soil erosion? [5 points]

25. How is the headcutting that originates on the Palo Alto Ranch being addressed on the King's Anvil Ranch? [3 points]

26. The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance was created in response to altered recreational used and change in legal status of several species.

27. How, specifically, has recreational use changed on the ranch? [3 points]

28. What is the source of this alteration in recreational use? [2 points]

29. Describe the alteration in legal status of these species. [2 po