Classification Crops
According to Special Purpose
1. Arable crops:
Crops that are grown on ploughed land. Cereals, root crops, tobacco, sugarcane, maize, and potatoes are examples of annual crops.
2.Aromatic crops
Essential oils, gum exudates, balsam, and oleoresin are odoriferous and volatile compounds found in one or more parts of the cropplants.
viz wood, bark, foliage, flower and fruit are called Aromatic plants.
3.AIley CropsÂ
Alley crops or hedge-row intercrops are planted as part of an agroforestry approach that includes the simultaneous planting of permanent, preferably leguminous trees or shrubs with an arable crop.
The hedgerovss trees are planted in wide rows in the interspace or ‘alley’ between the tree rows, and the crop is planted in the interspace or ‘alley’ between the tree rows.
Sweet potato, Black gram, Turmeric, and Ginger, for example, are planted in passageways made by rows of Eucalyptus, Subabul, and Cassia.
4.Augment Crops
These crops are planted as a complement to the major crops’ yields.
e g, Japanese mustard with berseem.
5.Avenue Crops
Crops like this are grown alongside farm roads and fences.
e g. Pigeon pea, Glyricidia sisal etc.
6. Border Guard CropsÂ
These crops are mostly produced as border crops to protect other crops from intruding animals or to reduce wind speed.
Around the gramme field, for example, safflower (a thorny oilseed crop) is grown.
7.Cash Crops
A crop planted for direct sale rather than for animal feed, such as tobacco, or a crop farmed by a farmer largely for sale to others rather than for personal use.
e g sugarcane, cotton, jute, tobacco etc.
8.Catch Crops
When the primary crop fails, these crops are produced to catch the next season.
e g. Linseed, toria, urd, moong cowpea etc.
9.Contour Crops
Crops are planted on or near the contour line to prevent soil erosion.
e g marvel grass etc.
10.Cover Crops
Between periods of regular crop production, a close-growing crop is cultivated primarily to enhance and protect the soil from erosion by ground covering leaves and/or rootmats.
e g. Lobia, groundnut, urd, svveet potato, methi etc.
11.Complementary Crops
Both the main crop and the intercrop benefit from each other.
e g. Jowar + Lobia.
12.Competitive Crops
Intercropping is not possible with such crops since they compete with one other.
e .g. two cereals.
13.Exhaustive Crops
After growing, these crops get exhausted and depart the land.
e g. Cereals (Rice)
14.Energy Crops
An energy crop is a plant that is produced as a low-cost, low-maintenance harvest for biofuels or for its energy content directly.
e g, sugarcane, potato, maize, topioca.
