Page 23 - Introduction to Agriculture by: Aqleem Abbas

Introduction to Agriculture Notes prepared by: Aqleem Abbas

grains are grown in small plantings. Here much of the planting, harvesting, and threshing
continues to be done by hand or with primitive equipment.

The development in the 1960s of improved grain-crop varieties with higher yields, stronger pest
resistance, and greater response to fertilizers has improved productivity throughout much of the
world. In many areas of the Tropics, the new developments triggered the so-called green
revolution, a dramatic increase in grain production. More work was needed, however, to adapt
superior varieties to local conditions and to solve human problems associated with the
distribution of their benefits. The energy shortage that began in 1973 led to a shortage of oil-
based chemical fertilizers and of fuel to run irrigation pumps, which also placed constraints on
further gains from the green revolution. These are grasses grown for their edible seed. They are
also called grain crops. Examples are sugar beet, wheat, maize, rice, sorghum, millet, and oat.
Rye (scale cereal), and sugar cane.

Forage crops

Forage-crop farming serves as the basis for much of the world’s livestock industries. Forage
crops are mowed, dried, and stored as hay; chopped and stored wet as silage; or fed directly to
cattle as pasture or as freshly chopped forage. In tropical and subtropical regions, most livestock
consume forages as pasture. In temperate zones, forages are commonly stored as hay or silage
for winter use.

Common legume forages of the temperate zones include alfalfa; red, white, and alsike clovers;
and birds foot trefoil. Popular grasses include timothy, orchard grass (cocksfoot), smooth brome
grass, tall fescue, and bluegrass. Forage-crop farmers normally grow one or more legumes in
association with a grass. Bacteria in the root nodules of the legumes convert atmospheric
nitrogen (see Nitrogen Fixation) into forms available to these plants and enrich the soil for the
grasses as well, thereby reducing the need for fertilizer and increasing the yields and the quality
of the forage.

These crops are grazed by animals or harvest as green chops, hay, silage. E.g. leguminosa (clover) have
three hundred types. Technically defined

Those crops which has dry matter greater than twenty fiver percent. For example barseem.

Fodder crops

When wheat, maize or other coarse grasses are harvested and cured for animal feed are know as fodder
crops. Most of the forage crops belongs to grass family or leguminous group. E.g. grasses and clovers

Silage crops

Partially fermented and succulent