Field crops, both in domestic and in world agriculture, have one of the leading meanings. They occupy most of the agricultural land and provide the main products. Crop cultivation is the cultivation of about 90 species of plants that provide a significant part of the nutrition for humans, as well as feed for livestock, raw materials for further processing. As a branch of crop production, field cultivation is part of the farming system of almost every agricultural enterprise. This is one of the key links in the economy of most countries.
What is field cultivation?
Crop farming is the main branch of agriculture responsible for the production of field products, mainly annual winter and spring crops, crops: industrial, grain, melons, fodder, potatoes. The field of crop production is determined based on natural conditions. Crop cultivation is a part of agriculture, which in varying degrees is combined with livestock, horticulture or vegetable growing, due to economic or technological features.
Field crop grouping
Crop cultivation is the cultivation of various types of cultivated plants, which can be grouped depending on the nature of use of the main product, which is obtained during harvesting.
1. Cereals, in turn, are divided into the following groups:
- the first group of grain bread (spring and winter) - rye, wheat, oats, barley;
- the second group of grain bread (spring) - millet, corn, rice and buckwheat, sorghum;
- legumes - fodder beans, peas, beans, lupins.
2. Tuber and root crops, fodder cabbage, gourds:
- root crops - fodder and sugar beets, swede, carrots;
- fodder cabbage, kohlrabi;
- tubers - ground pear, potatoes;
- gourds - pumpkin, melon, watermelon.
3. Feed crops include:
- perennial bean herbs - alfalfa, clover, sainfoin;
- perennial grasses - fescue, timothy, rump;
- annual bean herbs - seradella, vetch;
- annual cereal grasses - Moghar, Sudanese grass ;
- new annual and perennial fodder plants - rapeseed, oil radish, comfrey hard, Sosnowski hogweed, Eastern goatskin.
4. Oil and essential oil plants:
- essential oils - mint, caraway seeds, coriander, clary sage;
- oilseeds - peanuts, mustard, sesame seeds, sunflowers.
5. Spinning crops are divided into:
- plants with fiber on the seeds - cotton;
- bast-fiber plants - hemp, flax, kenaf.
6. Shag and tobacco.
The value of the cultivar
To better understand what field cultivation is, it is necessary to determine the value of the variety in plant breeding. A variety is a population of plants that is purposefully created, a unit that has the necessary set of qualities and properties, economic and botanical characteristics. Such a specimen must have extraordinary productivity, be in high consumer demand, be resistant to diseases and pests, and have technological value.
What is field cultivation in terms of breeding new species? Breeding is this whole system, the science of breeding and maintaining new plant varieties. Each cultivated variety first undergoes serious research and testing in laboratory conditions, and then in variety testing sites. Those that have successfully passed all the tests are recorded in the list of zoned recommended for cultivation in a particular climate zone.
The best seeds are called elite. They are obtained thanks to special selection methods using special technology. Its essence lies in the repeated selection of varietal purity and screening of low quality specimens. Elite seeds must have a special document on compliance with the requirements of GOST for the elite. Varietal control is also conducted in the field - field testing with the execution of special documents.
Crop cultivation in our region
Crops of various crops, sugar beets, potatoes and flax are produced in farms in almost all areas where there are favorable conditions for growing these crops.
So, for example, in the Oryol, Bryansk, Tula, Kursk and other areas of the chernozem zone of Russia, almost all crops of factory-made sugar beets are concentrated. Flax flax is grown in the Pskov, Tver, Yaroslavl and Smolensk regions. In the central parts of the chernozem and non-chernozem zones, potatoes are cultivated. Thanks to the developed cattle breeding, most of the farms cultivate fodder crops, which often account for more than 47% of all sown areas.
In the Central Black Earth and North Caucasus Economic Regions, thanks to fertile soils, more than half of all grain crops in the country are grown. What is field cultivation for Russia? This is one of the key links in the national economy of our country.