Highbush blueberry plants

There are three commercially important species of blueberries that are native to the Eastern United States:
1.“Highbush”
2.“Lowbush” and
3.“Rabbiteye”

Highbush blueberry is a native, upright, 6-12 feet tall, crown-forming shrub. The common name refers to the relatively tall stature of these plants. Twigs are yellow-green (reddish in winter) and covered with small wart-like dots. Leaves are deciduous, alternate, simple, elliptic or ovate, 1 to 3½ inches long and slightly waxy above with pubescence (hairs) at least on the veins beneath.

Highbush plants require fewer chilling hours to produce fruit and are well adapted to Florida and California’s moderate climate.

Blueberries grow best in a well-drained sandy loam, rich in organic matter. Clay soils can be made suitable for blueberries by adding organic matter (such as peat moss) and sand. In very poorly drained soils, blueberries may be planted in ridges 4 inches above the sur-rounding soil level.

Highbush blueberry has a root system devoid of root hairs, but the role of root hairs is often taken over by mycorrhizae. The extensive hyphae of these fungi in-crease the volume of soil that can be accessed by the plant and improve nutrient uptake. Moreover, ericoid mycorrhizal fungi protect roots against infection by pathogens, such as Phytophthora spp., increase the plants’ tolerance for stress-ful environmental conditions and influence plant growth and yield.

Highbush and lowbush species are the most common species grown for commercial production. Most fresh market blueberries are from highbush plants and most processed blueberries are from lowbush plants.

Highbush blueberry produces abundant fruit every year. Highbush blueberry is self-fertile, but cross-pollination increases fruit set and results in larger, earlier berries with more seeds

Highbush blueberries are eaten raw, smoke-dried, sun-dried, boiled, and baked in a wide variety of culinary settings. They have one of the highest concentrations of iron of the temperate fruits.

Highbush blueberry plants (Vaccinium corymbosum L.)

Allium cepa L. or onion

Onion (Allium cepa L.) has been valued as a food and a medicinal plant since ancient times. It is widely cultivated, second only to tomato, and is a vegetable bulb crop known to most cultures and consumed worldwide.

Allium cepa is a biennial plant with adventitious and fibrous roots and 3–8, distichous, glaucous leaves. The bulb is made of concentric, enlarged fleshy leaf bases. The outer leaf base dries and becomes thin and variously coloured, forming the protective coat, while the inner leaf bases thicken when the bulb develops. The mature bulb can be globose, ovoid or elongate and its size varies depending on the cultivar.

The genus Allium is very large and consists of many wild edible species(only a small fraction is cultivated commercially),and is widely distributed over temperate zones in the northern hemisphere.

The plant portion commonly used is the bulb, which is utilized as a food ingredient to give flavour and aroma to a great variety of dishes. The bulb is eaten raw or cooked. The leaves and the flowers of the plant are also edible and are often used in salads. The seeds of the plant are sprouted and eaten as well. Onion is used as food and spice in diets of almost all cultural areas.

Onion nutritional composition is very complex. It has-been shown that it is one of the major sources of dietary flavonoids in many countries. Specifically, onion has been characterised for its flavonol quercetin and quercetin derivates. Moreover, it is rich in other bioactive compounds such as frutooligosaccharides and sulfur compounds.

Allium cepa L. or onion

Cultivation of sugar cane

Sugar cane is a giant grass belonging to the genus Saccharum. It requires a lot of sunlight and water. The sugar which amounts to about 15 per cent of the weight of the cane is found in a soft fiber in the interior of the cane.

While nearly all sugar canes are of the same species, differences in growing condition (climate, etc) affect the characteristics of the juice.

For example the sugar content of the juices from sugar canes grown in the tropics is higher than in sugar canes grown in cooler climate.

Sugar cane is a tall perennial tropical grass, which tillers at the base to produce unbranched stems from 2 to 4 m or more tall, and to around 5 cm in diameter. It is cultivated from these thick stems, stalks or canes, form which the sugar is extracted.

The plants take 6 to 12 months to reach maturity. Sugar cane is harvested buy chopping the stems from the plant. The roots are left in the ground to grow new stems, and a new crop.

In the United States, sugar cane is grown primarily in Louisiana, and some is grown in Florida and Hawaii.

Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Philippine, and other countries also produce sugar cane.
Cultivation of sugar cane

Basic structure of cell wall

The cell is the basic structural unit if all plant tissues. These cells are surrounded by cell walls that provide an elastic support for retaining the contents of the cell.

Strength and elasticity are gained by use of several cross-linked polymers of different elastic properties, with an adhesive cementing structures together.

The cell also has a membrane layer, which is located just inside the cell wall and which controls the passage of liquids into and out of the cell. The cell is filled with jelly-like substance, termed the cytoplasm, which is composed of protein, sugars, salts and other substance dispersed in water.

Mature cells also contain vacuoles, which are separate compartments filled with a fluid, cell-sap and which are composed of dissolved sugars, salts, organic acids, pigments and other materials.

Also located within the cytoplasm are separate inclusion bodies, called plastids, which contains the pigment of chlorophyll. These plastids are only both 4 to 10 nm in diameter. The plant cell wall plays important roles in controlling cell differentiation.

The thin cell wall of a young cell, called the primary cell wall, contains many enzymes including not only glycosyl hydrolases, which simply disassemble cell wall polysaccharide, but also cell wall modifying enzymes such as expansin, endoxygloglucan transferase and pectinmethyl esterase.
Basic structure of cell wall

Pruning of tomato crop

Tomato plant like most plant, need regular pruning or other care of to get the best out of them. Pruning technique varies by type of tomato.

Once the plant has grown to full height or about 6 trusses from the ground, it can be trimmed the top and halt the upward growth. This will allow the nutrients to be used to feed the tomatoes instead of going to encourage leaf growth.

Fresh-market tomatoes are pruned early in the season in order to increase fruit size and earliness. Pruning involves removing from the stem a number of axially shoots that grow between the soil level and first flower cluster.

The axillary shoots are removed when 7-10 cm long. The number of shoots removed depends on the cultivar. The flowering and fruiting are significantly influenced by spacing and pruning.

The bush tomatoes generally do not need this kind of pruning as they are developed to grow bush -like and have a shortened growing and fruit-bearing season.
Pruning of tomato crop

Planting of blackberry plant

In general, the best time for establishing a blackberry plantation is in the spring, and as growth normally starts early, the work of planting should be done as early as soil conditions will permit.

Availability of soil moisture is the most importance factor to consider in choosing a planting site for blackberry.

Almost any soil type, except very sandy soils, is suitable for blackberries as long as the drainage is good.

Blackberries are for the most part rank-growing pants and require liberal distances in and between the rows.

A common planting, plant erect varieties of blackberries five feet apart in the row, and eight to ten feet between the rows.  Space vigorous varieties of trailing or semi-trailing blackberries such as Thornless Evergreen, eight to 12 feet apart in rows, that are 10 feet apart.

The tillage of the blackberry plantation should be such as to hold weeds and suckers in check and maintain maximum moisture and growth conditions, but cultivation should cease early enough to induce the plants to ripen their wood thorough before winter.
Planting of blackberry plant

Wild rice crop

Wild rice is an annual plant that grows from seed. Zizania aquatica L. and Zizania palustris L. is not closed related to rice.

It is native to North America. In it natural states it is found mainly along the shores of rivers and streams in shallow water and at outlets and inlets of lakes. Seed germination is evident when the coleoptiles that covers the leaves breaks through the tough outer layer the seed.

Germination of the wild rice seed begins with snowmelt and spring runoff from mid to late April.

Wild rice is primarily wind pollinated, a process that ensures genetic diversity through outcrossing. In addition, the plant has some capacity for self-pollination. Breezes, birds feeding on wild rice worms, and insects – particularly bees – all assist pollination.

The wild rice plant is 5-6 feet tall with five or six leaves on the main tiller and can develop 20-30 tillers.

Kernel of mature grain with lemma and palea (hulls) removed (caryopsis) vary from 0.3 to 0.18 inches in diameter.

Wild rice grows best in full sunlight and the light intensity in the underwater habitat can become a limiting factor of algae, scum, or debris crowd the surface.
Wild rice crop

Plant Parts: The root

Plant Parts: The root
Plants are like animals and man. They have parts. Each part has it own specific function. Generally, a typical plant has three parts, these are roots, stems and leaves.

There are two kinds of root, called tap and fibrous, The tap root is a type which is made up of the main root, branching sidewise in all directions to form secondary and tertiary roots.

Most dicots have tap roots especially when these are grown from seed.
Examples of a tap root types plants are: raddish, carrots and turnips.

The fibrous type root is made up of hair-like structures of uniform sizes growing like a brush. Example of plants belonging to this type, are most monocot plants like rice, bamboo, corn and grasses.

The root is that leafless plants part which absorbs the dissolved nutrients from the soil and water. The roots also serve as anchorage, storage and reproduction organs. Sweet potato, carrots and breadfruits are examples.

The root is readily separable into epidermis, cortex and stele.

To these regions new cellars are added by an apical meristem. The outer surface of the meristem builds a root cap which protects the roots from mechanical injury as it pushes through the soil.

Cell division, elongation and maturation are progressive processes taking place at the back region of the rootcap which result in a vertical stratification of the root.

In this region successive stages in tissue differentiation are going on at the back area of elongation.

The epidermal cells produce long and cylindrical outgrowth called the root hairs, which increase the absorbing power of the root.

The cortex of the root is the same as those found in the stem. Stele is made up of strand of primary xylem and primary phloem. Roots of plants capable of marked increase on diameter develop as vascular cambium in the form of a cylinder just outside the primary xylem inside the primary phloem.

Secondary xylem is produced starting from the inner section of the cambium and secondary phloem from the outer section.

In the process of development extensive increase in diameter rupture the epidermis and cortex. At this ruptures region cork is developed either in the inner section of the cortex in the pericycle or in the area of secondary phloem.
Plant Parts: The root

Early Food Crops

Early Food Crops
The angiosperms provide most of our food crops. They first appeared in the early Mesozoic or late Paleozoic era about 200 – 250 million years ago, but fossil evidence of them is extremely limited until they began to dominate during the Cretaceous (136 – 190 million years ago). The angiosperms were the first plants to have double fertilization and the enclosure of seeds in fruit. Double fertilization provided zygotes with copious resource to help them get established and fruits attracted animals for dispersal, it was the appearance of the angiosperm that set the stage for the development our mammal ancestors.

A wide range of hypotheses implicating selection have been presented for a rapid emergence and diversification of the angiosperms. The most popular hypothesis is that the concomitant rise of pollinating insects led to powerful divergent selection as foragers and hosts developed complex relationship.

It was the angiosperms that ultimately provided us with most of our crops and their emergence predated the appearance of our species, Homo sapiens. In fact, most of our food families or their close relatives were in existence long before we began farming. The only completely new crop type to appear after the advent of agriculture was maize, Zea mays, which has an ear and tassel arrangement not found in its progenitors. In most cases, human beings did not influence the overall structure of crop species, only the size of their edible organs and their ease of harvest.

Human beings now consume a diverse array of plant structure, and at least 64 families of angiosperms and 180 genera are utilized as crops. This is a broad systematic group, but represents only a small fraction of the total number of angiosperm families (300) and genera (3000). The dicotyledons provide the highest number of crop plants; however, the bulk of the world is fed by a few monocotyledonous grains (maize, rice and wheat).
Early Food Crops