Crops Originating From Australia
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A crop is a
plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or
subsistence A subsistence economy is an economy directed to basic subsistence (the provision of food, clothing, shelter) rather than to the market. Henceforth, "subsistence" is understood as supporting oneself at a minimum level. Often, the subsistence econo ...
. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
or
hydroponics Hydroponics is a type of horticulture and a subset of hydroculture which involves growing plants, usually crops or medicinal plants, without soil, by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in aqueous solvents. Terrestrial or aquatic plant ...
. Crops may include macroscopic
fungus A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...
(e.g.
mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...
s) and marine seaweed, macroalga (e.g. seaweed farming, seaweed), some of which are grown in aquaculture. Most crops are harvested as food for humans or fodder for livestock. Some crops are gathered from the wild often in a form of intensive gathering (e.g. ginseng, yohimbe, and eucommia). Important non-food crops include horticulture, floriculture and industrial crops. Horticulture crops include plants used for other crops (e.g. fruit trees). Floriculture crops include bedding plants, houseplants, flowering garden and pot plants, cut cultivated greens, and cut flowers. Industrial crops are produced for clothing (fiber crops e.g. cotton), biofuel (energy crops, algae fuel), or medicine (medicinal plants).


Important food crops

The importance of a crop varies greatly by region. Globally, the following crops contribute most to human food supply (values of kcal/person/day for 2013 given in parentheses): rice (541 kcal), wheat (527 kcal), sugarcane and other sugar crops (200 kcal), maize (corn) (147 kcal), soybean oil (82 kcal), other vegetables (74 kcal), potatoes (64 kcal), palm oil (52 kcal), cassava (37 kcal), legume pulses (37 kcal), sunflower seed oil (35 kcal), rape oil, rape and mustard oil (34 kcal), other fruits, (31 kcal), sorghum (28 kcal), millet (27 kcal), Peanut, groundnuts (25 kcal), beans (23 kcal), sweet potatoes (22 kcal), bananas (21 kcal), Nut (fruit), various nuts (16 kcal), soybeans (14 kcal), cottonseed oil (13 kcal), groundnut oil (13 kcal), Yam (vegetable), yams (13 kcal). Note that many of the globally apparently minor crops are regionally very important. For example, in Africa, roots & tubers dominate with 421 kcal/person/day, and sorghum and millet contribute 135 kcal and 90 kcal, respectively. In terms of produced weight, the following crops are the most important ones (global production in thousand metric tonnes):


Methods of Cropping and Popular Crops in the U.S.

Cropping is not simply planting and letting it grow, there are various methods of cropping that are used in the agricultural industry. Such as mono cropping, crop rotation, sequential cropping, and mixed intercropping. Each method of cropping have their purposes and possibly disadvantages to them as well. Himanshu Arora defines mono cropping as where a field only grows one specific crop year round. Mono Cropping has its disadvantages, according to Himanshu Arora, such as the risk of the soil losing its fertility. Following mono cropping, another method of cropping is relay cropping. According to the National Library of Medicine, Relay cropping may solve a number of conflicts such as inefficient use of available resources, controversies in sowing time, fertilizer application, and soil degradation. The result coming from the use of relay cropping is higher crop output. In the United States, corn is the largest crop produced, and soybean follows in at second, according to the government of Alberta. Referring to a map given by the Government of Alberta, the most popular region to grow these popular crops are in the inner states of the U.S., it is where the crops are most successful in output.


See also

* General topics and economics ** Cash crop ** Food crop ** Crop cultivation ** Crop yield ** Fruit trees ** Industrial crop ** Intensive crop farming ** Intercropping ** List of most valuable crops and livestock products ** Multiple cropping ** Neglected and underutilized crop ** Permanent crop ** Sharecropping ** Staple food ** Plant nursery, Nursery plants * Floriculture crops * Guerrilla gardening * Management practices ** Cover crop ** Crop destruction ** Crop residue ** Crop rotation ** Crop weed ** Kharif crops (crops specific to South Asia) ** Nurse crop ** Rabi crops (crops specific to South Asia) * Genetic diversity ** Crop diversity ** Crop wild relative ** Seed bank * Origin ** Neolithic founder crops


References


Further reading

* {{Authority control Crops,