3.6 Say it in English

Естественное плодородие, большое количество органических веществ, взаимодействие почвы и растений, источник питания растений, готовый к немедленному употреблению, разрушать, внесение удобрений, осушение, засухоустойчивость, уменьшение урожая, смешанные удобрения.

3.7 Choose the correct statements from the following ones:

0. A high level of inherent fertility must be accompanied by periodic application of bulky organic matter.

1. A high productivity of crop yields depends on a climate and temperature only.

2. The micro-flora and micro-fauna must make the soil properties better.

3. Applications of manure need to be supplemented with dressings of inorganic matter.

4. All the important nutrients of the farmyard manure are immediately available.

5. Application of manure makes heavy soils easier to work.

6. The heat-absorbing power of the soil depends on the soil colour.

7. The use of mixed fertilizers possesses many advantages.

3.8 Find the paragraphs speaking about results of applying complex fertilizers.

3.9 Make an annotation of the text “Fertilization”.

3.10 Read the following text without dictionary. Title the text.

Fertilizer must be put into the seed-bed, where it will do most good to the young plant as it grows. This is done in two ways: a) fertilizer is spread on the seed-bed before the seed is sown and usually harrowed in; b) fertilizer is put in at the same time as the seed and usually near to it in the soil. Top-dressing means putting a fertilizer onto a growing crop. It is commonly done with nitrogen fertilizers on growing grain crops such as a spring dressing of sulphate of ammonia for a crop of winter wheat. If the nitrogen had been applied in the seed-bed, most of it would be washed out during the winter. Lime and plant foods in fertilizers are not all used up in the year they are applied to the soil. Some of the value is left over for a year or more and helps later crops.

Text 4 Environmental Problems

4.1 Read the following international words and translate them: action, concentrate, principles, public, local, national, resources, station, acre, traffic, neutralize, chemicals, distance, ecological, balance, factor, synthetic, toxic, insecticides, pesticides.

4.2 Read the following words, paying attention to the pronunciation: abundant, sustainable, trouble, scientific, dioxide, sulphur, major, exhaust, nitric, enormously, insoluble, artificially, measurable, residual, release, near- demise, behavioral, exposure, mercury, contaminant, persistent, annually, pollutant.

4.3 Translate the following word-combinations into Russian: food supplies, power stations, road traffic, air current, plant and animal life, disease control and prevention, genetically modified crops, garden sprays, household pest control products.

4.4 Read and translate the following texts with the help of a dictionary. Part 1

“A Double-edged Sword” of Chemistry

Chemistry is important – there is no doubt about that. It lies at the heart of our efforts to produce new materials that make our lives safer and easier, to produce new sources of energy that are abundant and nonpolluting and to understand and control the many diseases that threaten us and our food supplies. Although a strong case can be made that the use of chemistry has greatly enriched all of our lives, there is also a dark side of the story. Our society has used its knowledge of chemistry to kill and destroy. It is important to understand that the principles of chemistry are inherently neither good nor bad – it’s what we do with knowledge that really matters.

Although humans are clever, resourceful, and concerned about others, they also can greedy, selfish, and ignorant. In addition we tend to be shortsighted, we concentrate too much on the present and do not think enough about a long-range implication of our actions. This type of thinking has already caused us a great deal of trouble – severe environmental damage has occurred on many fronts. However, it is less important to lay blame than to figure out how to solve this problem.

T

The chemical industry

he environment excites growing public concern due to realizing that at present time human activity has become varied and complex that it effects not only at local and national resources and build up of waste threaten to destroy Nature irreversibly. To preserve the environment of our planet development and growth in the world must be sustainable. Sustainable means not sacrificing tomorrow’s prospects for a largely illusory gain today.

Solution to environmental problems cannot be found without their scientific understanding. An important part of the answer must rely on chemistry. One of the hottest fields in the chemical sciences is environmental chemistry – an area that involves studying our environmental ills and discovering creative ways to address them.