Classification of crops based on different purposes
Arable Crops: Cultivated on ploughed land; typically annual crops like cereals, root crops, tobacco, sugarcane, maize, and potatoes.
Aromatic Crops: Plants containing odoriferous, volatile substances (essential oils, gum exudates, balsam, oleoresin) found in wood, bark, foliage, flowers, or fruits.
Alley Crops: Grown between rows of leguminous trees or shrubs under agroforestry systems (e.g. sweet potato, black gram, turmeric grown between Eucalyptus or Subabul rows).
Augment Crops: Grown to supplement the yield of the main crop (e.g. Japanese mustard with berseem).
Avenue Crops: Planted along farm roads or fences for utility or protection (e.g. pigeon pea, Gliricidia, sisal).
Border/Guard Crops: Crops grown around fields to prevent trespass, wind damage or animal invasion (e.g. safflower planted around gram).
Cash Crops: Grown for commercial purposes rather than household use (e.g. sugarcane, cotton, jute, tobacco).
Catch/Contingent Crops: Sown after the failure of the main crop to utilize remaining season (e.g. linseed, toria, urd, moong, cowpea).
Contour Crops: Grown along contour lines to reduce soil erosion (e.g. marvel grass).
Cover Crops: Provide soil cover to prevent erosion and improve soil health (e.g. lobia, groundnut, urd, sweet potato, fenugreek).
Complementary Crops: Main and intercrops benefit each other mutually (e.g. jowar + lobia).
Competitive Crops: Compete with each other for resources and are unsuitable for intercropping (e.g. two cereals together).
Exhaustive Crops: Deplete soil nutrients significantly (e.g. rice, maize).
Energy Crops: Grown for biofuel production or direct energy use (e.g. sugarcane, potato, maize, tapioca).
Fouling Crops: Cultural practices of such crops promote weed infestation (e.g. direct seeded upland rice).
Ley Crops: Grown for grazing or fodder, sometimes in rotation with arable crops (e.g. berseem + mustard).
Medicinal Crops: Contain biologically active compounds like alkaloids, glycosides, used in pharmaceuticals.
Mulch Crops: Grown to conserve soil moisture through ground cover (e.g. cowpea).
Nurse Crops: Provide shelter or support to other crops during establishment (e.g. sunhemp in sugarcane, jowar in cowpea).
Paira/Utera Crops: Broadcast sown before harvest of standing rice to utilize residual moisture and fertility (e.g. lentil, gram, pea, linseed).
Paired Row Crops: Crops are sown in pairs with skipped rows to conserve moisture in dryland farming.
Restorative Crops: Help restore soil fertility, often legumes (e.g. pulses like mungbean, urd, cowpea).
Silage Crops: Chopped, fermented, and stored crops used as livestock feed in off-season (e.g. maize, cowpea, jowar).
Smother Crops: Dense and fast-growing crops used to suppress weeds (e.g. buckwheat, mustard, cowpea, urd).
Stimulant Crops: Contain compounds that stimulate the human body (e.g. tobacco, opium).
Supplementary Crops: Do not compete or benefit each other directly but add diversity (e.g. maize + cucurbits).
Trap Crops: Attract pests to protect the main crop, often planted around fields (e.g. ladyfinger to trap cotton red bug).
Truck Crops: Large-scale vegetable crops grown for market shipment (e.g. potato, tomato, lettuce, melons, beets, cabbage, strawberries).
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