A clamp is a compact heap, mound or pile of materials. A storage clamp is used in the
agricultural industry for temporary storage of root crops such as
potato
The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
,
turnip,
rutabaga
Rutabaga (; North American English) or swede (British English and some Commonwealth English) is a root vegetable, a form of ''Brassica napus'' (which also includes rapeseed). Other names include Swedish turnip, neep (Scots language, Scots), an ...
,
mangelwurzel
Mangelwurzel or mangold wurzel (from German ''Mangel/Mangold'', "chard" and ''Wurzel'', "root"), also called mangold,Wright, Clifford A. (2001) ''Mediterranean Vegetables: a cook's ABC of vegetables and their preparation in Spain, France, Italy, ...
, and
sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...
.
A clamp is formed by excavating a shallow rectangular depression in a field to make a base for the clamp. Root crops are then stacked onto the base up to a height of about . When the clamp is full, the earth scraped from the field to make the base is then used to cover the root crops to a depth of several inches.
Straw
Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry wikt:stalk, stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the crop yield, yield by weight of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, ry ...
or old
hay may be used to protect the upper surface from rain erosion.
A well-made clamp will keep the
vegetables
Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including flowers, fruits, ...
cool and dry for many months. Most clamps are relatively long and narrow, allowing the crops to be progressively removed from one end without disturbing the remaining vegetables. The use of a clamp allows a farmer to feed vegetables into market over many months.
See also
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*
Prehistoric storage pits
Storage pits are underground cists that were used historically to protect the seeds for the following year's crops, and to stop surplus food from being eaten by insects and rodents. These underground pits were sometimes lined and covered, for ...
*
*
*
*
* , an artist collective named after potato clamps
"Nanase Okawa" ''Animerica Anime & Manga Monthly'' 1997 © Viz Communications, Inc., 172
/ref>
References
External links
{{agriculture-stub
Food preservation
Agricultural terminology