Abstract
The solar energy impinging upon the agricultural fields of a single village in Shandong province of the People's Republic of China was traced through the crop residues to the cattle that were employed to cultivate the crops. The amount of solar energy captured by the total plant biomass at harvest time (expressed as a percentage of the total incident solar insolation) was 0.96% for wheat, 0.94% for corn and 0.70% for cotton. Over a 1-year period cattle consumed 7.42% of the energy contained in the wheat plant, 5.10% of the cotton plant, and 365 of the corn plant. Less than 1% (0.92%) of the total yearly energetic consumption of the cattle was devoted toward providing power for agricultural work. Thirty-one percent of the cattle energy consumption was returned to the soil as dung. Milk and beef were not consumed by humans in this village. Corn provided 67% of the total energy requirements for this cattle population. It is proposed that this more complete analysis of interttrophic energetic exchange offers certain advantages over the more traditional energetic focus of human targeted products. Subtle inter-relationships are revealed that might otherwise be difficult to recognize in cross-cultural analyses.
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