Tag: agriculture in india - ii : food crops

A few showers of rain during the months of December and January are beneficial to the rabi crops because they protect the crops from frost.

Rice and Wheat 

Among the given options pulses belong to leguminous crop. Pulses are a type of leguminous crop but pulse term refers to dried seed.

Some examples of pulses include beans, peas, cowpea, dry beans like pinto beans, kidney beans, navy beans, dry peas, lentils, lupins, and peanuts, Mung bean, golden gram, green gram.

Pulses grow in pods and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours.

Pulses are very high in protein and fibre, and are low in fat. They also have nitrogen fixing capabilities.

Soybeans are low in saturated fat and high in protein, vitamin C, and folate. They are also a good source of fiber, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and thiamin.

Nitrogen is the most essential nutrient for plant. Pulses can utilize nitrogen present in the soil by symbiotic relation with nitrogen fixing bacteria that live inside roots of the plants.

Pulses also improve fertility of soil and hence are grown as rotation crops in between the different crops.

India is the largest producer as well as consumer of pulses in the world. Major pulses that are grown in India are tur (arhar), urad, moong, masur, peas and gram. Major pulse producing states in India are Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

• Green Revolution is the Intensive plan of the 1960s to increase crop yields in developing countries by introducing higher-yielding strains of plant and new fertilizers
  
• It developed new strains of high yield variety seeds, mainly wheat and rice and also millet and corn.
  
• The green revolution of wheat and rice left pulses becoming the next preference. 
  

Rice is paddy crop and rest of them are kharif crop.

• Masur, Urad and Tur are varieties of pulses.
  
• Masur: This dal is best for improving blood circulation.
  
• Urad: These pulses are rich in vitamin B.
  
• Tur: Usually eaten by majority of Indians. It helps in easy bowel movement.
  

• Leguminous crops are plants which belong to Leguminosae family. Legumes are grown primarily for their grain seed called pulse.
  
• Nitrogen fixing capabilities; In the roots of legumes, a special type of bacteria Rhizobia is present. They fix nitrogen and make it available to the plant.