This book is a field guide to crops, it also contains comprehensive information on their history and uses. It covers the established 'broad-acre' crops like wheat and barley, new 'alternative' crops like miscanthus and borage and finally also 'forgotten' crops like rivet wheat and bristle-pointed oats.

This book concentrates on the group of plants showing the steepest decline among British flora over the past 25 years--plants that grow among the crops. Easy-to-use format is designed to enable people to take it into the field and to identify these species whether they are a beginner or an expert The text covers the history of--and includes practical recommendations for managing--the places where these plants still occur 100 plant profiles include key identification features, flowering and germination times, and differences between similar species Color distribution maps show where these plants have been seen in the past 25 years, while the accompanying text indicates their current location

Nutrient imbalance in soils is an emerging threat to sustainable agriculture: intensive cultivation, use of poor quality groundwater, depletion of soil organic matter and excessive use of fertilizers are major reasons for poor soil fertility worldwide. This necessitates correct diagnosis of plant nutrient deficiencies to avoid further use of pesticides in cases where pests or pathogens that are not in fact the cause of poor crop health. Richly illustrated with 600 colour photographs, this book is a visual field identification guide for symptoms of most common nutrient deficiencies in field crops, covering all their stages of occurrence. Detailed descriptions and suggested for management practices are given with each entry.

Sometime around 1500 AD, an African farmer planted a maize seed imported from the New World. That act set in motion the remarkable saga of one of the world’s most influential crops—one that would transform the future of Africa and of the Atlantic world. Africa’s experience with maize is distinctive but also instructive from a global perspective: experts predict that by 2020 maize will become the world’s most cultivated crop. James C. McCann moves easily from the village level to the continental scale, from the medieval to the modern, as he explains the science of maize production and explores how the crop has imprinted itself on Africa’s agrarian and urban landscapes. Today, maize accounts for more than half the calories people consume in many African countries. During the twentieth century, a tidal wave of maize engulfed the continent, and supplanted Africa’s own historical grain crops—sorghum, millet, and rice. In the metamorphosis of maize from an exotic visitor into a quintessentially African crop, in its transformation from vegetable to grain, and from curiosity to staple, lies a revealing story of cultural adaptation. As it unfolds, we see how this sixteenth-century stranger has become indispensable to Africa’s fields, storehouses, and diets, and has embedded itself in Africa’s political, economic, and social relations. The recent spread of maize has been alarmingly fast, with implications largely overlooked by the media and policymakers. McCann’s compelling history offers insight into the profound influence of a single crop on African culture, health, technological innovation, and the future of the world’s food supply.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

The book is divided into two parts, kharif crops and rabi crops, covering as many as 48 crops. It contains the latest, authoritative and readily usable information about the cultivation techniques, varieties, nutrient/water/weed management along with specific climatic/soil requirements of all the crops. It is essentially a teaching and study material as it is written conforming to ICAR syllabus, strictly considering the limitations of the students and the teachers. Information on each crop is chosen in such a way that it is readily understandable by the undergraduate students and can be explained by the teachers in 22 weeks of a semester. Unnecessary detailing and research information has been avoided. Photographic illustrations of the crops are given to enable the students to understand the morphology of the crop clearly. Related terms, concepts or recent advancements in each crop are highlighted in the box. For a group of related crops, model questions are also given to visualise the probable questions on each crop. An attempt has been made to include the latest statistics from FAO and other global and Indian sources. Points to remember given at the end of each chapter enable the students to have a quick recap of the topic before examination. Further, many general topics, related to field crops, have been covered in eight separate brief chapters, to ensure that the students understand crop-related topics.