The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant Solanum tuberosum and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This practice reduces the reliance of crops on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, along with the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds.
Alfalfa, also called lucerne, is a perennial flowering plant in the legume family Fabaceae. It is cultivated as an important forage crop in many countries around the world. It is used for grazing, hay, and silage, as well as a green manure and cover crop. The name alfalfa is used in North America. The name lucerne is more commonly used in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The plant superficially resembles clover, especially while young, when trifoliate leaves comprising round leaflets predominate. Later in maturity, leaflets are elongated. It has clusters of small purple flowers followed by fruits spiralled in 2 to 3 turns containing 10–20 seeds. Alfalfa is native to warmer temperate climates. It has been cultivated as livestock fodder since at least the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
A hoe is an ancient and versatile agricultural and horticultural hand tool used to shape soil, remove weeds, clear soil, and harvest root crops. Shaping the soil includes piling soil around the base of plants (hilling), digging narrow furrows (drills) and shallow trenches for planting seeds or bulbs. Weeding with a hoe includes agitating the surface of the soil or cutting foliage from roots, and clearing the soil of old roots and crop residues. Hoes for digging and moving soil are used to harvest root crops such as potatoes.
A seed drill is a device used in agriculture that sows seeds for crops by positioning them in the soil and burying them to a specific depth while being dragged by a tractor. This ensures that seeds will be distributed evenly.
Planter or Planters may refer to:
Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s, concerns have been raised about the dangers of the technology. Laws, regulations, and treaties were created in the years following to contain genetically modified organisms and prevent their escape. Nevertheless, there are several examples of failure to keep GM crops separate from conventional ones.
A broadcast seeder, alternately called a broadcaster, broadcast spreader or centrifugal fertilizer spreader (Europe) or "spinner" (UK), is a farm implement commonly used for spreading seed where no row planting is required (mostly for lawns and meadows: grass seeds or wildflower mixes), lime, fertilizer, sand, ice melt, etc., and is an alternative to drop spreaders/seeders. Apart from spinners there is also a type of broadcast spreader called "wagtail spreader" (the name describing the movement of its distributing part), used with tractors.
Intensive crop farming is a modern industrialized form of crop farming. Intensive crop farming's methods include innovation in agricultural machinery, farming methods, genetic engineering technology, techniques for achieving economies of scale in production, the creation of new markets for consumption, patent protection of genetic information, and global trade. These methods are widespread in developed nations.
Agriculture in Bhutan has a dominant role in the Bhutan's economy. In 2000, agriculture accounted for 35.9% of GDP of the nation. The share of the agricultural sector in GDP declined from approximately 55% in 1985 to 33% in 2003. Despite this, agriculture remains the primary source of livelihood for the majority of the population. Pastoralism and farming are naturally complementary modes of subsistence in Bhutan.
A planter is a farm implement, usually towed behind a tractor, that sows (plants) seeds in rows throughout a field. It is connected to the tractor with a drawbar or a three-point hitch. Planters lay the seeds down in precise manner along rows. Planters vary greatly in size, from 1 row to 54, with the biggest in the world being the 48-row John Deere DB120. Such larger and newer planters comprise multiple modules called row units. The row units are spaced evenly along the planter at intervals that vary widely by crop and locale. The most common row spacing in the United States today is 30 inches.
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that they tow or operate. Diverse arrays of equipment are used in both organic and nonorganic farming. Especially since the advent of mechanised agriculture, agricultural machinery is an indispensable part of how the world is fed. Agricultural machinery can be regarded as part of wider agricultural automation technologies, which includes the more advanced digital equipment and robotics. While agricultural robots have the potential to automate the three key steps involved in any agricultural operation, conventional motorized machinery is used principally to automate only the performing step where diagnosis and decision-making are conducted by humans based on observations and experience.
The John Deere DB120 is an agricultural planter made by Bauer Built Mfg. in Paton, Iowa. Upon its release in 2009, it was the largest production planter in the world. It has a 120 feet (37 m) wide tool-bar and plants 48 rows which are 30 inches (760 mm) apart. It is estimated that the planter should sow 90 to 100 acres (0.40 km2) per hour at 5 to 5.5 miles per hour ground speed. This means that in a 12-hour day it will plant almost two sections of land. John Deere claims that the planter is 30% more productive than their 36 row DB90 planter. To transport such an incredibly wide implement, the DB120 folds into five sections. The planter weighs in at over 20 tons empty and almost 24 tons when loaded with seed. The DB120 had a limited release in 2009 with orders being taken for the 2010 season. It retailed at (US)$345,000 dollars. In 2020, the base price on the John Deere website was over $500,000.
A loy is an early Irish spade with a long heavy handle made of ash, a narrow steel plate on the face and a single footrest. The word loy comes from the Irish word láí, which means "spade". It was used for manual ploughing prior to and during the Great Famine.
Pottiputki is a planting tool that was created by Tapio Saarenketo in the early 1970s, used for manual planting of containerized seedlings. The planters can work in an ergonomically correct position while maintaining high productivity, making the task both fast and comfortable. It is more effective, but more expensive than the traditional mattock.
Jim Gerritsen is an American farmer and activist from Maine. He is mostly known for his involvements in the politics of Organic Faming as the proponent of the same. Gerritsen is President of the Maine-based national trade organization Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA).
Avian foraging refers to the range of activities and behaviours exhibited by birds in their quest for food. In addition to their unique body adaptations, birds have a range of described behaviours that differ from the foraging behaviours of other animal groups. According to the foraging habitat, birds may be grouped into foraging guilds. Foraging includes a range of activities, starting with the search for food, making use of sensory abilities, and which may involve one or more birds either of a single or even of multiple species. This is followed by locomotion and movements to obtain or capture the food, followed by the processing or handling of the foods prior to ingestion. Like all organisms foraging entails balancing the energy spent and energy gained. The high metabolic rate of birds, among the highest in the homoeotherm groups, constrains them to ensure a net positive gain in energy and have led evolutionary ethologists to develop the idea of optimal foraging.
This glossary of agriculture is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in agriculture, its sub-disciplines, and related fields. For other glossaries relevant to agricultural science, see Glossary of biology, Glossary of ecology, Glossary of environmental science, and Glossary of botanical terms.
The cultivation of potatoes is a major part of the agricultural industry of Algeria. The country was the 17th-largest producer of potatoes in the world in 2018. Production is centred on two regions: the Mediterranean coast and the desert around El Oued. Growing conditions in the coast are broadly conventional in earth furrows while at El Oued centre pivot irrigation predominates, with the potatoes grown in sand. Only an insignificant minority of the crop is factory-processed.
