Crop Production and Management Notes
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Chapter-1
Crop Production and Management
INTRODUCTION
As you learnt in your previous classes that all living organisms like green plants and animals need food for its survival. The green plants prepare their own food by the process of photosynthesis while animals obtain their food directly or indirectly from plants. So, now a question comes, What about humans? Where do humans get their food from or how do they meet their daily requirements? Humans grow the plant and rear animals to meet their daily requirements. But since, the human population is increasing day by day; their food requirement is also increasing along with it. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the quantity of food to fulfil their increasing demand for food.
Do you know humans require more than a quarter of billions of tonnes of grain every year meeting their increasing demand for food? Have you ever wondered how it is achieved? Yes, the food requirement is achieved by farming more lands, increasing the food production and by managing the production and distribution of food. Thus, it is the agriculture that made possible to sustain a huge population at one time.
In this chapter, we will be discussing the various agricultural practices and their importance in agriculture.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
In this lesson, you will be able to learn about:
- Crop
- The term agriculture.
- Basic agricultural practices
- Preparation of soil: It includes ploughing, levelling and manuring
- Different implements used in ploughing
- Sowing of seed
- Addition of manure and fertilisers
- Irrigation
- Different methods used in irrigation
- Weeding and crop protection
- Harvesting, Threshing and winnowing
- Storage of grain and their importance
- Preparation of soil: It includes ploughing, levelling and manuring
- Transplantation
- Crop rotation
- Animal husbandry
CROP
What is a crop? The crop is a plant of the same kind that is grown on a large scale in an area. For example, all the plants of wheat grown in a field are called wheat crop. Similarly, all the plants of rice grown in a field are called rice crop.
Some of the crop plants and their varieties are
| Crop plants | Varieties |
| Cereals | Wheat, rice, barley, maize |
| Pulses | Gram, peas and beans |
| Root crops | Sweet potato |
| Tuber crops | Potato |
| Oilseeds | Mustard, sunflower and groundnut |
| Sugar crops | Sugarcane |
| Fibre crops | Jute and cotton |
| Vegetables | Tomato, Cabbage, Spinach |
| Fruits | Mango, orange, Banana |
Do you know each and every crop is grown in a particular season? Yes, Paddy, for example, is grown during rainy season while maize is grown during the winter season. Therefore, on the basis of seasons, all crops are categorised into two main groups: Kharif crops and Rabi crops.
Kharif crops: These are the crops grown in rainy season during the month of June to October. They are also known as summer or monsoon crop.
Examples include Maize, sugarcane, soybean, groundnut and paddy.
Rabi crops: These are the crops grown in winter season from November to April. They are also known as winter crops.
Examples include Wheat, Mustard, peas and Barley.
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