Agriculture classification of crops

Among the many systems of classification of crops, commercial, agricultural, and taxonomical can be considered to be the most widely accepted agriculture classification of crops.

Commercial classification

Plants are classified according to commercial purposes as food crops, industrial crops, and food adjuncts.

Food crops: cereals, rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, ragi, pulses, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

Industrial crops: cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, groundnut, castor, gingelly, tapioca, etc.

Food adjuncts: food and industrial use, no distinct demarcation; spices, condiments, beverages, and narcotics.

It is also possible that one crop which has been included as a food crop may be figured as an industrial crop; for example maize or tapioca.

Agricultural classification

Plants and plant products for human use.

Cereals

Wheat and barley were generally the offerings - called Cerealia munera after Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest. Subsequently, the grains used for food, especially for making bread were called Cerealia or cereals. The term is applicable to the grains obtained from the members of the family Poaceae, such as rice, wheat, maize, sorghum, barley, millet, rye, oats.

Pseudocereals are plants used similarly to cereals but belonging to families other than Poaceae such as buckwheat or amaranth.

Pulses

The term pulse is used for the seeds of plants from the Fabaceae family (legumes), such as beans, pea, lentil and chickpea. Pulses supply proteins and form chief source in vegetarian food. Leguminous plants fix nitrogen in root nodules - produced with the help of nitrogen fixing bacteria.

Oils and oilseeds

Plants wits high fat amount are used to produce vegetable oils. Examples include oil palm, olive, soybean, rapeseed and sunflower.

Pastures

The grasses and legumes which are grown in arable land and left for animals to graze-on. The straw of paddy and cholam and dry plants of pulse crops and groundnut form important forages. The foliage of a number of trees and shrubs which are edible to animals form another source of forage especially in dry areas and during the periods of scarcity.

Sugars and starches

Sugar is extracted from sugarcane and sugar beet. Starch can be extracted from maize, cassava and potatoes.

Spices and condiments

Fibers

Rubbers

There are trees found in most parts of the world but mostly Africa that make or provide rubber for human uses.

Green manures and green-leaf manures

Growing of special crops for adding organic matter and nitrogen to the soil and by ploughing them in situ is called green manuring.

Sunhemp
Pillipesara
Kolingi
Indigo
Sesbania speciosa

Taxonomical classification

Taxonomical classification includes the taxonomical aspects of crops which is their morphology and economical parts and agrobotanical characters. This classification increases understanding of the morphological characters of any particular family.

As a disadvantage, this classification crops with different economic uses and morphological and other agrobotanical peculiarities when brought under one family do not generally bring out the economic importance of the individual crops.

References

1. Botany of Tropical Crops - Dr. V. Chellamuthu
2. Economic Botany by Kochhar