Library Guides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Agriculture and Soil Science

Agriculture and Soil Science

Please note: This is a collection of select materials which serve as examples of OER within this discipline. Consider these "jumping off points" for further review and discovery. Need help finding something for your class? See the Get Support page for more information.

Books from ISU Authors

Introduction to Soil Science
This textbook introduces readers to introductory soil science topics including the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils; soil formation, classification, and global distribution; soil health, soils and humanity, and sustainable land management.
Genetics, Agriculture, and Biotechnology
This textbook provides an introduction to plant genetics and biotechnology for the advancement of agriculture.
Plant Breeding Methods
This text provides an overview of how plant breeders develop cultivars of plant species. The methods that breeders use depend directly on the type of cultivar used to produce a commercial crop.

PBEA Series

The following books, co-edited by Drs. Walter Suza and Kendall Lamkey, are adapted from Plant Breeding in E-Africa modules funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Botany & Horticulture

Botany (Ha, Morrow, and Algiers)
An introductory textbook covering, botany, biodiversity, plant structure and physiology, and ecology and conservation. Accompanies the Botany Lab Manual by Morrow and the Photographic Atlas linked below.
Botany Lab Manual (Morrow)
With regard to organisms, this course begins with the Cyanobacteria, winds through several groups of unrelated organisms that were all once categorized as fungi, picks apart pieces of the "protista," and finally emerges into Kingdom Plantae.
A Photographic Atlas for Botany
This book provides images and descriptions for the organismal groups and anatomical features covered in general botany.
Botany Laboratory Manual (Baseshore and Dennis)
Introduces students to the basic concepts of plant biology and a survey of major groups of plants and plant-like organisms. This course expands on many of the biological concepts introduced in BIOL 101 - General Biology I, as it includes plant physiology, comparative anatomy and plant classification.
History and Science of Cultivated Plants
History and Science of Cultivated Plants narrates how humans transitioned from foragers to farmers and have arrived at present-day industrial agriculture-based civilization.
Inanimate Life
Inanimate Life is an open textbook covering a very traditional biological topic, botany, in a non-traditional way. Rather than a phylogenetic approach, going group by group, the book considers what defines organisms and examines four general areas of their biology: structure, reproduction, energy needs, and interactions with other organisms.
Introduction to Botany
This text is a re-structuring the “classical” course into a more logical sequence of themes with two main ideas: (1) put as much plant-related information as possible into an evolutionary context and (2) explain complicated problems with simple words and metaphors.
Plant Anatomy and Physiology: Images and diagrams to explain concepts
This book was created to support teaching of an introductory unit on plant environmental physiology. It makes use of various images of cells and tissues to introduce and illustrate the range of plant organelles, cells, tissues and organs.
Red Seal Landscape Horticulturist Identify Plants and Plant Requirements
This is an editable, open access learning resource with interactive web-based experiences customized for horticulture students studying plant identification.
The Science of Plants
An approachable guide to the fundamentals of plant science. Created for horticulture students, gardeners, science teachers, and anyone interested in understanding plants and how they grow. This is the required text for HORT 1001/6001 Plant Propagation at the University of Minnesota Department of Horticultural Science.
Understudied Indigenous Crops
This eBook focuses on highlighting examples of understudied Indigenous crops, providing information on their origins, production, use, conservation, and breeding.

Plant Breeding

Crop Adaptation and Improvement for Drought-Prone Environments
This books shares the latest developments relevant to concepts, methods, and technologies associated with dry cereals and legume crops’ production in the semiarid West Africa.
Crop Wild Relatives and their Use in Plant Breeding
This text is being developed through a collaboration between Colorado State University and the United States Department of Agriculture.

Soil Science

Soils Laboratory Manual
The manual highlights the multidisciplinary aspects of soil science with laboratories focused on soil formation, classification, and mapping; soil physics, soil biology; soil chemistry; and soil fertility and management.
Properties and Behavior of Soil – Online Lab Manual
This project aims to provide a complete guide for the CE/AREN 3143 course (Properties and Behavior of Soil) at the University of Texas Arlington. Video demonstrations of lab processes accompany each chapter.
Soil and Water Conservation: An Annotated Bibliography
The goals for this textbook are to create an up-to-date resource for soil and water conservation students and practitioners.
Soil and Water Conservation Laboratory Manual
This laboratory manual was developed for graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in soil and water conservation classes who have previously taken a course on introductory soil science. It is designed with a “scaffolding” approach in which each laboratory builds on the previous ones on the way to developing a conservation plan for a single study site.
Building Soils for Better Crops: Ecological Management for Healthy Soils, 4th Edition
The 4th edition of Building Soils for Better Crops is a one-of-a-kind, practical guide to ecological soil management. It provides step-by-step information on soil-improving practices as well as in-depth background—from what soil is to the importance of organic matter.

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