Agricultural Practices in India

Berseem (Egyptian clover) is a fast-growing, high-protein fodder crop extensively grown to feed livestock. It belongs to the legume family and fixes atmospheric nitrogen, improving soil fertility. Linseed, green gram, and mustard are primarily cash crops cultivated for their seeds and oil, not as animal fodder.

Harvesting means cutting and collecting crops from fields (matches C). Threshing is loosening the edible grains from cut crops (matches D). Irrigation is watering the soil (matches A). Winnowing uses wind to separate grains from husk (matches B). The correct pairing is option D.

Agriculture is the broad practice of cultivating crop plants for food, fiber, and other products. Silviculture specifically refers to tree cultivation, horticulture focuses on garden plants, and generation is not an agricultural term.

Threshing is the process of separating grain from the harvested and cut crop stalks. It loosens the grain from the chaff and stalks after harvesting. Other options describe different separation processes based on quality, size sorting, or removing infected grains.

Air provides carbon (C) from carbon dioxide and oxygen (O) from atmospheric oxygen. Hydrogen (H) comes from water. Plants use all three elements (C, H, and O) to build carbohydrates through photosynthesis. The other combinations are incomplete.

The practice of growing two or more crops simultaneously in a fixed pattern is known as intercropping.

Abiotic factors (non-living) – temperature, wind, humidity, rainfall, drought, salinity, water-logging, light intensity, etc. Biotic factors (living) – pathogens, bacteria, virus, etc. Drought, salinity and water-logging are categorised under abiotic factors. On the other hand, diseases are caused by biotic factors such as living pathogens, bacteria, virus, fungi, etc. Therefore, diseases are biotic factors affecting crop production.

Mixed cropping simply means growing of two or more crops simultaneously on the same piece of land. For example, growing leguminous crop with non-leguminous crop. So, if non-leguminous crop cannot take nitrogen from the soil, the other leguminous crop consumes it as it can take nitrogen available in the soil. For example, wheat (non-leguminous crop) + gram (leguminous crop) or wheat (non-leguminous crop) + mustard (leguminous crop). Intercropping – Growing of two or more crops simultaneously in a fixed pattern is known as intercropping. A few rows of one crop and then a few rows of other crop are grown. Single cropping – It is a technique of growing a single crop over a wide area also known as monoculture. Crop rotation – A practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons for various benefits such as to avoid build-up of pathogens or pests that often occurs when one type of species is continuously cropped. Therefore, simultaneously growing of wheat (a cereal) + gram (leguminous crop) on the same piece of land in no fixed pattern is known as mixed cropping.

Cotton is grown for commercial purpose and is called cash crop.

Wheat is a rabi crop. It is sown after monsoons

Rabi crops are sown after the monsoon, around October.

Winnowing is the process of separating the gain from the chaff that gets mixed with it during threshing.

The seeds of some crops, like onion and rice are not sown directly in the field. They are sown in sebeds first and then transplanted to field.