Crops are the primary source of food for all human beings. With an increasing population, the demand for food is also on the rise. Subsequently, several crop production and management strategies and methods are implemented in the agricultural field to increase output level.
This particular article offers a fair idea about crop harvesting and its storage and highlights the crucial steps involved in both.
Read along to find more!
What is Crop Production?
The crop production definition states that it is a branch of agriculture that deals with the yield of crops, helping to meet the demand for food and fibre.
Several Practises Involved with Crop Production. The Most Important Ones are as Follows –
The figure below highlights the scientific principles of crop production in a nutshell.
It is noteworthy that both crop harvesting and its storage are dealt with with utmost care. It is done mostly to prevent unwarranted loss or damage to crops resulting from improper harvesting techniques or unfavourable environmental factors. On that note, let’s proceed to know more about them.
What is Crop Harvesting?
Crop harvesting is the procedure of cutting, gathering, or reaping crops. The said procedure is initiated when crops mature and turn golden yellow or brown. Usually, factors like the type of crop, its maturity period, and season are determining factors for the harvesting of crops. In India, festivals like Baisakhi, Bihu, Holi, Pongal, etc. are closely associated with the harvesting season.
Notably, there are two types of methods of harvesting in agriculture– manual and mechanical. The manual process of collection is more traditional and labour-intensive. Farmers use sickles and cutlasses extensively to harvest mature crops.
On the other hand, mechanical harvesting is a suitable example of modern farming techniques, wherein farmers use machines like harvesters to harvest mature crops. Subsequently, grains are separated from husks and chaff through the process of threshing and winnowing.
Test Your Knowledge: Complete the Sentences:
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Threshing is the process –
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Winnowing is the process –
What is Crop Storage?
It is the procedure of putting away crops safely until it is dispatched to the markets or sold off. Storing crops on a large scale often helps to solve food scarcity in the event of crop failure resulting from flood, drought, etc.
Since moisture, insects, rodents, and microorganisms can damage food grains, it is vital to store them carefully. Another reason why safe storage is so crucial is – food grains infested with microbes or insects often lose their ability to germinate. Consequently, post-harvesting crops are dried thoroughly in the sun to get rid of moisture. Similarly, to eliminate the risk of rodents, pesticides are used, while fumigation comes in handy against bacterial infestation. Subsequently, crops are packed in gunny bags or deposited in storage facilities.
On the other hand, fruits and vegetables are best for cold storage to prevent spoilage and discourage the growth of microorganisms. It is noteworthy that fruits and vegetables must be stored in a clean cold store with plenty of ventilation to keep them fresh for a long time. Hence, crop storage methods are of utmost importance to keep food in good and usable condition.
Test Your Knowledge: Which of These Does Not Protect Crops From Microbes?
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Turmeric
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b) Castor oil
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c) Rice Powder
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d) Castor oil
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Yields and Their Types
A yield is a plant that can be developed and collected widely for benefit or resource. Yields might allude either to the reaped parts or to the collection in a more refined state. Most harvests are developed in agribusiness or hydroponics. A harvest might incorporate perceptible organisms (for example mushrooms), or perceptible marine alga (for example ocean growth).
Most yields are reaped as nourishment for people or grain for animals. A few yields are accumulated from the wild (counting concentrated assembling, for example, ginseng, yohimbe, eucommia.
Significant non-food crops incorporate agriculture, horticulture, and modern yields. Agriculture crops incorporate plants utilised for different harvests (for example natural product trees). Horticulture crops incorporate sheet material plants, houseplants, blossoming nursery and pot plants, cut developed greens, and cut blossoms. Modern yields are delivered for clothing (fiber crops for example cotton), biofuel (energy crops, green growth fuel), or medication (therapeutic plants).
Horticulture is the act of developing plants and animals. Agribusiness was the vital improvement in the ascent of inactive human development, by which cultivating of tamed species made food overflows that empowered individuals to live in urban communities. The historical backdrop of farming started millennia prior. After social events wild grains started something like 105,000 years prior, beginning ranchers started to establish them around 11,500 years prior. Pigs, sheep, and steers were trained north of 10,000 years prior. Plants were autonomously developed in something like 11 districts of the world. Modern farming, dependent on enormous scope monoculture in the 20th century came to overwhelm horticultural results, however, around 2 billion individuals relied upon resource agribusiness.
The major rural items can be comprehensively gathered into food sources, filaments, powers, and natural substances (like elastic). Food classes incorporate cereals (grains), vegetables, natural products, oils, meat, milk, eggs, and parasites. More than 33% of the world’s laborers are utilized in horticulture, second just to the help area, albeit in late many years, the worldwide pattern of a diminishing number of rural specialists proceeds, particularly in emerging nations where smallholding is being surpassed by modern farming and motorization that brings a gigantic harvest yield increment.
Present-day agronomy, plant rearing, agrochemicals like pesticides and manures, and innovative improvements have pointedly expanded harvest yields, however causing biological and ecological harm. Specific rearing and present-day rehear
sing in creature farming have comparatively expanded the result of meat, yet have raised worries about animal government assistance and ecological harm. Natural issues incorporate commitments to a worldwide temperature alteration, consumption of springs, deforestation, anti-toxin opposition, and development of chemicals in modern meat creation. Farming is both a reason for and delicate to natural corruption, for example, biodiversity misfortune, desertification, soil debasement, and a worldwide temperature alteration, all of which can cause diminishes in crop yield. Hereditarily adjusted organic entities are generally utilized, albeit some are prohibited in specific nations.
Contemporary Farming
From the 20th century, concentrated farming expanded its usefulness. It subbed manufactured composts and pesticides for work, however caused expanded water contamination, and frequently elaborate homestead sponsorships. As of late, there has been a reaction against the natural impacts of traditional horticulture, bringing about natural, regenerative, and feasible agribusiness developments. One of the significant powers behind this development has been the European Union, which originally affirmed natural food in 1991 and started the change of its Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 2005 to get rid of item-connected ranch sponsorships, otherwise called decoupling.
The development of natural cultivating has reestablished research in elective advances like incorporating irritation the board, particular rearing, and controlled-climate farming. Late standard innovative improvements incorporate hereditarily adjusted food. Interest in non-food biofuel crops, advancement of previous homestead lands, rising transportation costs, environmental change, developing shopper interest in China and India, and populace development, are compromising food security in many regions of the planet.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development states that an increment in smallholder horticulture might be essential for the answer to worries about food costs and in general food security, given the great experience of Vietnam. Soil corruption and infections, for example, stem rust are central issues worldwide; around 40% of the world’s horticultural land is truly debased. By 2015, the agrarian result of China was the biggest on the planet, trailed by the European Union, India, and the United States. Business analysts measure the absolute element efficiency of agribusiness and by this action horticulture in the United States is generally 1.7 occasions more useful than it was in 1948.