Agriculture

What Is a Crop vs. Weeds in Agriculture: A Perspective!

What is a crop? What are crops? What are weeds?

These are elementary questions and for those who have undertaken a formal study of the basics of agriculture, they may seem to be unnecessary questions.

Are they?

Nonetheless, for beginners at least, it is important to be clarified on the terms.

The clarification becomes more relevant in view of the increasing concerns on the environment and biodiversity conservation.

It is in connection with these concerns that cutting trees has become an issue of absolute right or wrong.

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Flower Types: Complete Vs. Incomplete, Perfect Vs. Imperfect, Etc.

Several flower types occur in the angiosperms. The main classifications are briefly discussed below.

Complete vs. Incomplete Flower Types

There are four tissues all or some of which make up a flower as a structural organ in the angiosperms: sepal, petal, stamen, and pistil.

Based on whether all of these four floral parts are present or anyone is absent, flowers are classified as either complete or incomplete.

A flower is called complete if all four floral organs are present in the same flower structure.

A commonly illustrated complete flower is that of the gumamela or China rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis).

An incomplete flower lacks any one or more of these parts.

The flowers of grass plants (family Gramineae or Poaceae) are mainly wind-pollinated and are incomplete, lacking both sepals and petals.

Relying on the wind to accomplish pollination, there is no need for these flowers to attract pollinators.

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The Importance of Water in Plants and in Crop Agriculture: A Climatic Factor

The importance of water relates to its essential functions in perpetuating both plant and animal life.

It is an absolute requirement for all living organisms. Anaerobic organisms can live without oxygen, but they cannot without water.

In crop agriculture,  water is an important climatic factor.

It affects or determines plant growth and development. Its availability, or scarcity, can mean a successful harvest, or diminution in yield, or total failure.

According to FAO (2011), irrigation typically doubles farm yields and the number of crops grown in one year is increased from 1 to 2.

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A How-to Guide in Growing Jackfruit

For the enterprising crop farmers who wish to engage in growing jackfruit, this how-to guide is offered as a general reference.

The cultural practices will also find application in other farm crops.

Cultural Practices for Jackfruit

1. Plant Propagation

The use of seeds is generally preferred because vegetative propagation is quite difficult.

However, trees may not exhibit the characteristics of the parent plant, take a longer time to start flowering, and are generally tall.

The seeds should be collected from healthy, mature plants which are prolific producers of fruits with desirable characteristics.

Only large seeds are used. Immediately after extraction from the fruit, the seeds are washed in water to remove the slimy coating around the seeds.

The horny part of the pericarp is also removed to hasten germination.

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What Is Air Layering, Its Advantages, and Disadvantages

Air layering, also called marcotting, marcottage, pot layerage, circumposition, and gootee, is a vegetative method of plant propagation that involves the rooting of aerial stems while attached to the parent plant.

It is one among the various special methods of layering which also include tip layering, simple layering, compound or serpentine layering, mound or stool layering, and trench layering.

This propagation method applies to many trees, shrubs, bamboo, and herbaceous plants.

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How We Propagated the Giant Staghorn Fern Our Way

The Giant Staghorn Fern or capa de Leon (Platycerium grande) can be propagated deliberately from spores even without following the advanced, but meticulous, procedure in fern spore propagation.

The latter involves the sowing of mature spores on sterilized fragments of “cabo-negro” or “paslak” and maintaining humid conditions all throughout until germination and seedling emergence.

Mass propagation by spore can also be done through tissue culture.

Cabo-negro is a local term for the indigenous, black, trunk-like columnar plant organ probably consisting of the root of a giant terrestrial fern.

It was only by accident that we discovered that the Giant Staghorn can be mass-produced sustainably by exploiting its natural method of propagation.

We’ve had several large Giant Staghorn ferns in the backyard at General Santos City since about 40 years ago, but we always grow these from starter plantlets or juvenile ferns which we bought from private suppliers.

Until recently, the city had a hot climate with scarce rainfall.

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Adult Mango Trees Can Be Converted to Another Variety by Top-grafting

Top-grafting, or topworking, is the grafting of the top portion of a plant that is already mature or large enough to have several branches.

An equivalent technique in which budding is used is called top-budding. 

The technique is not new, it has in fact been thoroughly discussed by Hartmann and Kester (1975) in their book Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices.

The authors say that the technique is used to convert an already established long-lived plant, either a tree, a shrub, or a vine, into another variety or cultivar.

Accordingly, apples and pears are examples of long-lived plants that can be top-grafted.

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Common Planting Patterns for Orchard Establishment Distinguished

Various planting patterns or planting arrangements can be applied in orchard establishments.

In row-planted fruit trees, the common types are the square, rectangular or hedgerow, quincunx or diamond, and triangular or hexagonal.

These planting arrangements are based on the geometric shape that the closest hills form when connected by an imaginary line.

These are also applied in other perennial crops like coconut, oil palm, and rubber.

In square planting, one plant or a group of plants in a common hill occupies the corners of a square which has 4 sides of equal lengths.

A 10 m x 10 m spacing in square planting will result in a crop area having 10 rows and 10 cross-rows that are both 10 meters apart and perpendicular to each other.

Diagonally, the plants also form rows that are about 7.1 meters apart.

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List of Vegetables: III. Examples of Leafy Vegetables

Leafy vegetables or vegetable crops are plants that supply edible leaves in various stages of development for culinary use.

The leaves may be separate and fully expanded or form ahead. In some species, the leaves are cooked and attached to segments of succulent stems.

Examples of these vegetables, without specifying geographical adaptation, are provided in the next table.

For clarity, some examples are included even though their primary products are not the leaves.

In such cases, the inclusion is merely to inform that their leaves are likewise commonly utilized in the preparation of vegetable dishes.

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The What, When, and Why of Using Plant Cuttings in Vegetative Propagation

Plant cuttings are segmented parts of plant organs that are used in vegetative propagation.

Just like other asexual or vegetative propagation methods, the use of cuttings allows the production of clones or plants which are considered “duplicates” of the parent plants genotypically.

It is advantageous where a plant does not produce seeds, the seeds are sterile, or whenever seeds are not available.

With crops that can be easily propagated using cuttings, this method has numerous advantages.

Many new plants can be produced in a limited space from a few stock plants.

It is simple and can be easily applied without having to learn the special techniques in grafting or budding.

It is rapid because there is no need to produce rootstocks.

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