Field Crops

What is a Field Crop

1. it is not a fruit or vegetable

2. it is grown for processing

3. it is usually a grain – but not always

4. it is grown over huge areas

Corn

•a grain is technically a one-seeded fruit, called a caryopsis

•grains are restricted to grasses

Corn Family

Poaceae

(just like turfgrasses), but no mowing here!

•Americans eat more corn than any other produce (used for more than eating)

soybean

•Glycine max

•not a grain, a legume

•family Fabaceae (Leguminosae)

• high in protien so used as substitute for meat in vegitarien products

• resistant to round up

wheat

•Triticum aestivum

•many species exist within Triticum, Triticum durum is used for pasta

•at least 12,000 years old, one of the oldest domesticated crops

• very easy to grow and stored longterm

• current better adaptation

• Norman Borlaug’s secret target ot the green revolution

cotton

•Gossypium hirsutum

•family = Malvaceae

•the “mallow family”

•okra, jute, hibiscus and others

• fibers are individual epidermus cells

• flower dies and forms “boll”

• when raw full of seeds

• self pollinated

Boll weevil

•Anthonomus grandis

•came into U.S. from Mexico in 1892

•decimated cotton from the 1920’s until DDT was used to control it in the 1950’s

•the weevil has been eradicated in most states, fire ants have also reduced the insect

ELS

•extra-long staple cotton

•pima cotton, Gossypium barbadens

•typically requires very hot climate

•longer and stronger fibers

•“Egyptian cotton”, “Pima cotton”

•a small perennial tree

•small amount grown in the US (5%)