1.
Seed
–
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering. The formation of the seed is part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, Seeds are the product of the ripened ovule, after fertilization by pollen and some growth within the mother plant. The embryo is developed from the zygote and the coat from the integuments of the ovule. Seed plants now dominate biological niches on land, from forests to both in hot and cold climates. The term seed also has a meaning that antedates the above—anything that can be sown, e. g. seed potatoes. In the case of sunflower and corn seeds, what is sown is the seed enclosed in a shell or husk, many structures commonly referred to as seeds are actually dry fruits. Plants producing berries are called baccate, sunflower seeds are sometimes sold commercially while still enclosed within the hard wall of the fruit, which must be split open to reach the seed. Different groups of plants have other modifications, the stone fruits have a hardened fruit layer fused to. Nuts are the one-seeded, hard-shelled fruit of plants with an indehiscent seed. Seeds are produced in several related groups of plants, and their manner of production distinguishes the angiosperms from the gymnosperms, angiosperm seeds are produced in a hard or fleshy structure called a fruit that encloses the seeds, hence the name. Some fruits have layers of hard and fleshy material. In gymnosperms, no special structure develops to enclose the seeds, however, the seeds do become covered by the cone scales as they develop in some species of conifer. Seed production in natural plant populations varies widely from year-to-year in response to weather variables, insects and diseases, over a 20-year period, for example, forests composed of loblolly pine and shortleaf pine produced from 0 to nearly 5 million sound pine seeds per hectare. Over this period, there were six bumper, five poor, and nine good seed crops, right after fertilization, the zygote is mostly inactive, but the primary endosperm divides rapidly to form the endosperm tissue. This tissue becomes the food the young plant will consume until the roots have developed after germination, after fertilization the ovules develop into the seeds. The ovule consists of a number of components, The funicle or seed stalk which attaches the ovule to the placenta and hence ovary or fruit wall, the nucellus, the remnant of the megasporangium and main region of the ovule where the megagametophyte develops. The micropyle, a pore or opening in the apex of the integument of the ovule where the pollen tube usually enters during the process of fertilization. The chalaza, the base of the ovule opposite the micropyle, the shape of the ovules as they develop often affects the final shape of the seeds
Seed
–
Brown
flax seeds
Seed
–
The inside of a
Ginkgo seed, showing a well-developed embryo, nutritive tissue (
megagametophyte), and a bit of the surrounding seed coat
Seed
–
Layers within an endospermic maize seed
Seed
–
A collection of various vegetable and herb seeds
2.
Husk
–
Husk in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. It often refers to the outer covering of an ear of maize as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the outer covering of a seed. It can also refer to the exuvia of bugs or small animals left behind after moulting, in cooking, hull can also refer to other waste parts of fruits and vegetables, notably the cap or sepal of a strawberry. The husk of a legume and some similar fruits is called a pod, plantago-seed mucilage is often referred to as husk, or psyllium husk. Crop plants of species have been selected that have hulless seeds, including pumpkins, oats. Husking of corn is the process of removing its outer layers, dehulling is the process of removing the hulls from beans and other seeds. This is sometimes done using a known as a huller. To prepare the seeds to have extracted from them, they are cleaned to remove any foreign objects. Next, the seeds have their hulls, or outer coverings, or husk, there are three different types of dehulling systems that can be used to process soybeans, Hot dehulling, warm dehulling and cold dehulling. Hot dehulling is the system offered in areas where beans are processed directly from the field, warm dehulling is often used by processors who import their soybeans. Cold dehulling is used in plants that have existing drying and conditioning equipment, the different dehulling temperature options are for different types of production, beans and preparation equipment. In third-world countries, husking and dehulling is often done by hand using a large mortar. These are usually made of wood, and operated by one or more people, the husk is biodegradable and may be composted. Chaff Gum Horsebread, a type of bread in which the chaff is not removed Rice hulls Rice pounder Threshing Winnowing
Husk
–
Corn being husked in the yard of a
Dungan farmer in
Kyrgyzstan
Husk
–
Women in
Cape Verde using multiple pestles in a large
mortar
Husk
–
History
Husk
3.
Fruit
–
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate seeds, accordingly, fruits account for a substantial fraction of the worlds agricultural output, and some have acquired extensive cultural and symbolic meanings. On the other hand, in usage, fruit includes many structures that are not commonly called fruits, such as bean pods, corn kernels, tomatoes. The section of a fungus that produces spores is called a fruiting body. Many common terms for seeds and fruit do not correspond to the botanical classifications, however, in botany, a fruit is the ripened ovary or carpel that contains seeds, a nut is a type of fruit and not a seed, and a seed is a ripened ovule. Examples of culinary vegetables and nuts that are botanically fruit include corn, cucurbits, eggplant, legumes, sweet pepper, in addition, some spices, such as allspice and chili pepper, are fruits, botanically speaking. g. Botanically, a grain, such as corn, rice, or wheat, is also a kind of fruit. However, the wall is very thin and is fused to the seed coat. The outer, often edible layer, is the pericarp, formed from the ovary and surrounding the seeds, the pericarp may be described in three layers from outer to inner, the epicarp, mesocarp and endocarp. Fruit that bears a prominent pointed terminal projection is said to be beaked, a fruit results from maturation of one or more flowers, and the gynoecium of the flower forms all or part of the fruit. Inside the ovary/ovaries are one or more ovules where the megagametophyte contains the egg cell, after double fertilization, these ovules will become seeds. The ovules are fertilized in a process starts with pollination. After pollination, a tube grows from the pollen through the stigma into the ovary to the ovule, later the zygote will give rise to the embryo of the seed, and the endosperm mother cell will give rise to endosperm, a nutritive tissue used by the embryo. As the ovules develop into seeds, the ovary begins to ripen and the ovary wall, in some multiseeded fruits, the extent to which the flesh develops is proportional to the number of fertilized ovules. The pericarp is often differentiated into two or three distinct layers called the exocarp, mesocarp, and endocarp, in some fruits, especially simple fruits derived from an inferior ovary, other parts of the flower, fuse with the ovary and ripen with it. In other cases, the sepals, petals and/or stamens and style of the fall off. When such other floral parts are a significant part of the fruit, it is called an accessory fruit, since other parts of the flower may contribute to the structure of the fruit, it is important to study flower structure to understand how a particular fruit forms. There are three modes of fruit development, Apocarpous fruits develop from a single flower having one or more separate carpels
Fruit
–
Culinary fruits
Fruit
–
Several
culinary fruits
Fruit
–
Mixed fruit
Fruit
–
Fruit shop in
Naggar,
Himachal Pradesh,
India
4.
Cereal
–
A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. Cereal grains are grown in quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa. In their natural form, cereals are a source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils. When refined by the removal of the bran and germ, the endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing nations, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, in developed nations, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial. The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest, agriculture allowed for the support of an increased population, leading to larger societies and eventually the development of cities. It also created the need for organization of political power, as decisions had to be made regarding labor and harvest allocation and access rights to water. Agriculture bred immobility, as populations settled down for long periods of time, early Neolithic villages show evidence of the development of processing grain. The Levant is the ancient home of the ancestors of wheat, barley and peas, there is evidence of the cultivation of figs in the Jordan Valley as long as 11,300 years ago, and cereal production in Syria approximately 9,000 years ago. During the same period, farmers in China began to farm rice and millet, using man-made floods, fiber crops were domesticated as early as food crops, with China domesticating hemp, cotton being developed independently in Africa and South America, and Western Asia domesticating flax. The first cereal grains were domesticated by early primitive humans, about 8,000 years ago, they were domesticated by ancient farming communities in the Fertile Crescent region. Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley were three of the so-called Neolithic founder crops in the development of agriculture, around the same time, millets and rices were starting to become domesticated in East Asia. Sorghum and millets were also being domesticated in sub-Saharan West Africa, while each individual species has its own peculiarities, the cultivation of all cereal crops is similar. Most are annual plants, consequently one planting yields one harvest, wheat, rye, triticale, oats, barley, and spelt are the cool-season cereals. These are hardy plants grow well in moderate weather and cease to grow in hot weather. The warm-season cereals are tender and prefer hot weather, barley and rye are the hardiest cereals, able to overwinter in the subarctic and Siberia. Many cool-season cereals are grown in the tropics, however, some are only grown in cooler highlands, where it may be possible to grow multiple crops per year
Cereal
–
Cereal
Cereal
–
A wheat field in
Dorset, England
Cereal
–
Cereal
grain seeds from left to right:
wheat,
spelt,
barley,
oat.
Cereal
–
Threshing; Tacuinum Sanitatis, 14th century
5.
Wheat
–
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region but now cultivated worldwide. In 2016, world production of wheat was 749 million tonnes, making it the second most-produced cereal after maize, since 1960, world production of wheat and other grain crops has tripled and is expected to grow further through the middle of the 21st Century. This grain is grown on land area than any other commercial food. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined, globally, wheat is the leading source of vegetal protein in human food, having a protein content of about 13%, which is relatively high compared to other major cereals and staple foods. The archaeological record suggests that wheat was first cultivated in the regions of the Fertile Crescent around 9600 BCE. In a small part of the population, gluten – the major part of wheat protein – can trigger coeliac disease, non-coeliac gluten sensitivity, gluten ataxia. Cultivation and repeated harvesting and sowing of the grains of wild grasses led to the creation of domestic strains, in domesticated wheat, grains are larger, and the seeds remain attached to the ear by a toughened rachis during harvesting. In wild strains, a more fragile rachis allows the ear to easily shatter, as the traits that improve wheat as a food source also involve the loss of the plants natural seed dispersal mechanisms, highly domesticated strains of wheat cannot survive in the wild. Cultivation of wheat began to spread beyond the Fertile Crescent after about 8000 BCE, jared Diamond traces the spread of cultivated emmer wheat starting in the Fertile Crescent sometime before 8800 BCE. Archaeological analysis of wild emmer indicates that it was first cultivated in the southern Levant with finds dating back as far as 9600 BCE, Genetic analysis of wild einkorn wheat suggests that it was first grown in the Karacadag Mountains in southeastern Turkey. Dated archeological remains of wheat in settlement sites near this region, including those at Abu Hureyra in Syria. With the anomalous exception of two grains from Iraq ed-Dubb, the earliest carbon-14 date for einkorn wheat remains at Abu Hureyra is 7800 to 7500 years BCE. Remains of harvested emmer from several sites near the Karacadag Range have been dated to between 8600 and 8400 BCE, that is, in the Neolithic period and these remains were dated by Willem van Zeist and his assistant Johanna Bakker-Heeres to 8800 BCE. They also concluded that the settlers of Tell Aswad did not develop this form of emmer themselves, the cultivation of emmer reached Greece, Cyprus and India by 6500 BCE, Egypt shortly after 6000 BCE, and Germany and Spain by 5000 BCE. The early Egyptians were developers of bread and the use of the oven, by 3000 BCE, wheat had reached the British Isles and Scandinavia. A millennium later it reached China, the oldest evidence for hexaploid wheat has been confirmed through DNA analysis of wheat seeds, dating to around 6400-6200 BCE, recovered from Çatalhöyük. The first identifiable bread wheat with sufficient gluten for yeasted breads has been identified using DNA analysis in samples from a dating to approximately 1350 BCE at Assiros in Macedonia. From Asia, wheat continued to spread throughout Europe, in the British Isles, wheat straw was used for roofing in the Bronze Age, and was in common use until the late 19th century
Wheat
–
Wheat
Wheat
–
Spikelets of a hulled wheat,
einkorn
Wheat
–
Green wheat a month before harvest
Wheat
–
Wheat harvest on the
Palouse,
Idaho, United States
6.
Rye
–
Rye is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the tribe and is closely related to barley. Rye grain is used for flour, rye bread, rye beer, crisp bread, some whiskeys, some vodkas and it can also be eaten whole, either as boiled rye berries or by being rolled, similar to rolled oats. Rye is a grain and should not be confused with ryegrass, which is used for lawns, pasture. Rye is one of a number of species grow wild in central and eastern Turkey. It is possible that rye traveled west from Turkey as an admixture in wheat. Since the Middle Ages people have cultivated rye widely in Central and it serves as the main bread cereal in most areas east of the French-German border and north of Hungary. In Southern Europe, it was cultivated on marginal lands, claims of much earlier cultivation of rye, at the Epipalaeolithic site of Tell Abu Hureyra in the Euphrates valley of northern Syria remain controversial. Critics point to inconsistencies in the dates, and identifications based solely on grain. Winter rye is any breed of rye planted in the fall to provide cover for the winter. It grows during warmer days of the winter when sunlight temporarily warms the plant above freezing and it is sometimes used in winter gardens and is a common nurse crop. Rye is grown primarily in Eastern, Central and Northern Europe, the main rye belt stretches from northern Germany through Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Latvia into central and northern Russia. Rye is also grown in North America, in South America, in Oceania, in Turkey, in Kazakhstan, production levels of rye have fallen in most of the producing nations, as of 2012. For instance, production of rye in Russia fell from 13.9 million metric tons in 1992 to 2.1 t in 2012, most rye is consumed locally or exported only to neighboring countries, rather than being shipped worldwide. Rye is highly susceptible to the ergot fungus, consumption of ergot-infected rye by humans and animals results in a serious medical condition known as ergotism. Ergotism can cause physical and mental harm, including convulsions, miscarriage, necrosis of digits, hallucinations. Historically, damp northern countries that have depended on rye as a staple crop were subject to epidemics of this condition. There have been occurrence of ergotism with periods where there were incidents of people persecuted for being witches
Rye
–
Rye
Rye
–
Rye grains.
Rye
–
For other uses, see
Rye (disambiguation).
Rye
–
Wild rye
7.
Legumes
–
A legume is a plant or its fruit or seed in the family Fabaceae. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for their grain seed called pulse, for forage and silage. Well-known legumes include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lentils, lupin bean, mesquite, carob, soybeans, peanuts, Fabaceae is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa. A legume fruit is a dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel. A common name for type of fruit is a pod, although the term pod is also applied to a number of other fruit types, such as that of vanilla. Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in structures called root nodules, for that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation. The term pulse, as used by the United Nations Food and this excludes green beans and green peas, which are considered vegetable crops. Also excluded are seeds that are grown for oil extraction. However, in usage, these distinctions are not always clearly made. Some Fabaceae, such as Scotch broom and other Genisteae, are leguminous but are not called legumes by farmers. Farmed legumes can belong to many classes, including forage, grain, blooms, pharmaceutical/industrial, fallow/green manure. Most commercially farmed species fill two or more roles simultaneously, depending upon their degree of maturity when harvested, grain legumes are cultivated for their seeds. The seeds are used for human and animal consumption or for the production of oils for industrial uses, grain legumes include beans, lentils, lupins, peas, and peanuts. Like other plant-based foods, pulses contain no cholesterol and little fat or sodium, Legumes are also an excellent source of resistant starch which is broken down by bacteria in the large intestine to produce short-chain fatty acids used by intestinal cells for food energy. Preliminary studies in humans include the potential for regular consumption of legumes in a diet to affect metabolic syndrome. There is evidence that a portion of pulses in a diet may lower blood pressure and reduce LDL cholesterol levels. Some, like alfalfa, clover, vetch, stylo, or Arachis, are sown in pasture, other forage legumes such as Leucaena or Albizia are woody shrub or tree species that are either broken down by livestock or regularly cut by humans to provide livestock feed. Legume species grown for their flowers include lupins, which are farmed commercially for their blooms as well as being popular in gardens worldwide, industrially farmed legumes include Indigofera and Acacia species, which are cultivated for dye and natural gum production, respectively
Legumes
–
A selection of various legumes
Legumes
–
Freshly dug
peanuts (Arachis hypogaea),
indehiscent legume fruits
Legumes
–
White
clover, a forage crop
8.
Bean
–
Bean is a common name for large seeds of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae which are used for human or animal food. The word bean and its Germanic cognates have existed in common use in West Germanic languages since before the 12th century, referring to broad beans and this was long before the New World genus Phaseolus was known in Europe. After Columbian-era contact between Europe and the Americas, use of the word was extended to pod-borne seeds of Phaseolus, such as the bean and the runner bean. Thus the term bean in general usage can mean a host of different species, seeds called beans are often included among the crops called pulses, although a narrower prescribed sense of pulses reserves the word for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. The term bean usually excludes legumes with tiny seeds and which are used exclusively for forage, hay, one is that in the past, several species, including Vigna angularis, mungo, radiata, and aconitifolia, were classified as Phaseolus and later reclassified. Unlike the closely related pea, beans are a crop that need warm temperatures to grow. Maturity is typically 55–60 days from planting to harvest, as the bean pods mature, they turn yellow and dry up, and the beans inside change from green to their mature colour. As a vine, bean plants need external support, which may be provided in the form of special bean cages or poles, native Americans customarily grew them along with corn and squash, with the tall cornstalks acting as support for the beans. In more recent times, the bush bean has been developed which does not require support and has all its pods develop simultaneously. This makes the bean more practical for commercial production. Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants, broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand since the seventh millennium BCE. They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt, not until the second millennium BCE did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe. In the Iliad is a mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor. Beans were an important source of protein throughout Old and New World history, the oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological site in Peru, and dated to around the second millennium BCE. The corn would not be planted in rows as is done by European agriculture, Beans would be planted around the base of the developing stalks, and would vine their way up as the stalks grew. All American beans at that time were vine plants, bush beans having been bred only more recently, the cornstalks would work as a trellis for the beans, and the beans would provide much-needed nitrogen for the corn. Squash would be planted in the spaces between the patches of corn in the field, dry beans come from both Old World varieties of broad beans and New World varieties
Bean
–
"Painted Pony" dry bean (
Phaseolus vulgaris)
Bean
–
Field beans (broad beans,
Vicia faba, ready for harvest
Bean
–
The Beaneater (1580-90) by
Annibale Carracci
Bean
–
Cooked beans on toast
9.
Soybeans
–
Glycine max, commonly known as soybean in North America or soya bean, is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean which has numerous uses. The plant, classed as a rather than a pulse by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Fat-free soybean meal is a significant and cheap source of protein for animal feeds, for example, soybean products, such as textured vegetable protein, are ingredients in many meat and dairy substitutes. The beans contain significant amounts of acid, dietary minerals. Soy vegetable oil, used in food and industrial applications, is product of processing the soybean crop. Traditional non-fermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk from which tofu and tofu skin are made, fermented soy foods include soy sauce, fermented bean paste, natto and tempeh. The main countries growing soybeans are the United States, Brazil, the English words soy and soya are ultimately derived from the Japanese pronunciation of shōyu, the Sino-Japanese word for soy sauce, by way of the Dutch adaptation of the same word, soja. The genus Glycine Willd. is divided two subgenera, Glycine and Soja. Includes the cultivated soybean, Glycine max Merr. and the wild soybean, Glycine soja is the wild ancestor of Glycine max, and grows wild in China, Japan, Korea and Russia. The subgenus Glycine consists of at least 25 wild perennial species, for example, Glycine canescens F. J. Herm. and G. tomentella Hayata, perennial soybean originated in Africa and is now a widespread pasture crop in the tropics. Like some other crops of long domestication, the relationship of the soybean to wild-growing species can no longer be traced with any degree of certainty. It is a variety with a very large number of cultivars. Like most plants, soybeans grow in distinct morphological stages as they develop from seeds into fully mature plants, the first stage of growth is germination, a process that first becomes apparent as a seeds radicle emerges. This is the first stage of growth and occurs within the first 48 hours under ideal growing conditions. The first photosynthetic structures, the cotyledons, develop from the hypocotyl and these cotyledons both act as leaves and as a source of nutrients for the immature plant, providing the seedling nutrition for its first 7 to 10 days. The first true leaves develop as a pair of single blades, subsequent to this first pair, mature nodes form compound leaves with three blades. Mature trifoliolate leaves, having three to four leaflets per leaf, are often between 6–15 cm long and 2–7 cm broad, under ideal conditions, stem growth continues, producing new nodes every four days. Before flowering, roots can grow 1.9 cm per day, if rhizobia are present, root nodulation begins by the time the third node appears
Soybeans
–
Soybean
Soybeans
–
Varieties of soybeans are used for many purposes.
Soybeans
–
Different varieties of soybeans being grown together
Soybeans
–
Tofu and soy sauce
10.
Staple food
–
The staple food of a specific society may be eaten as often as every day or every meal, and most people live on a diet based on just a small number of staples. Typical examples of staples include tubers and roots, and grains, legumes, such nonperishable foods are the only possible staples during seasons of shortage, such as dry seasons or cold temperate winters, against which times harvests have been stored. During seasons of plenty, wider choices of foods may be available. Most staple plant foods are derived either from cereals such as wheat, barley, rye, maize, or rice, or starchy tubers or root vegetables such as potatoes, yams, taro, arrowroot, other staple foods include pulses, sago, and fruits. Staple foods may contain, sorghum, olive oil, coconut oil. Most staples are plant materials, but in some fishing is the primary source of nutrition. Of the more than 50,000 edible plant species in the world, although there are over 10,000 species in the cereal family, just a few have been widely cultivated over the past 2,000 years. The staple food in different parts of the world is a function of weather patterns, local terrain, farming constraints, acquired tastes, for example, the main energy source staples in the average African diet are cereals, roots and tubers and animal products. In Western Europe the main staples in the diet are animal products, cereals and roots. Regional staples include rye, soybeans, barley, oats and teff, just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the worlds food energy intake, with rice, maize and wheat comprising two-thirds of human food consumption. The three are the staples of about 80% of the population, and rice feeds almost half of humanity. Roots and tubers, meanwhile, are important staples for over 1 billion people in the developing world, roots and tubers are high in carbohydrates, calcium and vitamin C but low in protein. Cassava root is a staple food in the developing world. With economic development and free trade, many countries have shifted away from low-nutrient-density staple foods to higher-nutrient-density staples, despite this trend, there is growing recognition of the importance of traditional staple crops in nutrition. Efforts are underway to identify better strains with superior nutrition, disease resistance, some foods like quinoa—a pseudocereal grain that originally came from the Andes—were also staple foods centuries ago. Oca, ulluco and amaranth seed are other foods claimed to be staples in Andean history, pemmican was a staple of the Plains Indians of North America. In 2010, the consumption of speciality grains such as quinoa was very small compared to other staples such as rice, wheat. These grains, once popular but then forgotten, are being reevaluated and reintroduced, most staple food is produced using modern and conventional farming practices
Staple food
–
Grains
Staple food
–
Various types of
potatoes
Staple food
–
Maize, the most produced food staple in the world.
Staple food
–
Boiled white
rice
11.
Plantain (cooking)
–
Cooking bananas are banana cultivars in the genus Musa whose fruits are generally used in cooking. They may be eaten ripe or unripe and starchy. Some cooking bananas are also referred to as green bananas or plantains, the term plantain is loosely applied to any banana cultivar that is eaten when cooked. However, there is no formal distinction between bananas and plantains. Cooking is also a matter of custom, rather than necessity, ripe plantains can be eaten raw, since the starches are converted to sugars as they ripen. In more formal usage, the plantain is used only for true plantains. All modern plantain cultivars have three sets of chromosomes, many are hybrids derived from the cross of two wild species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The currently accepted name for all such crosses is Musa × paradisiaca. Using Simmonds and Shepherds genome-based nomenclature system, cultivars which are cooked often belong to the AAB Group, although some belong to the AAA Group, fei bananas from the Pacific Islands are often eaten roasted or boiled, and are thus informally referred to as mountain plantains. However, they do not belong to either of the two species that all modern cultivated banana cultivars descended from, all members of the genus Musa are indigenous to the tropical regions of Southeast Asia and Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and Northern Australia. Plantains are a food staple in West and Central Africa, the Caribbean islands, Central America. They are treated as a fruit with a relatively neutral flavour. As with all bananas, part of the attractiveness of plantains as food is that they fruit all year round, plantains contain more starch and less sugar than dessert bananas, therefore they are usually cooked or otherwise processed before being eaten. They are always cooked or fried when eaten green, at this stage, the pulp is hard and the peel often so stiff that it has to be cut with a knife to be removed. Mature, yellow plantains can be peeled like typical dessert bananas and they can be eaten raw, but are not as flavourful as dessert bananas, so are usually cooked. When mature, yellow plantains are fried, they tend to caramelize and they can also be boiled, baked, microwaved or grilled over charcoal, either peeled or unpeeled. Plantains are a food in the tropical regions of the world. As a staple, plantains are treated in much the way as potatoes and with a similar neutral flavour
Plantain (cooking)
–
Plantains for sale
Plantain (cooking)
–
From left to right:
plantain,
red banana,
apple banana, and
Cavendish banana
Plantain (cooking)
–
Saba bananas (Musa (ABB Group) 'Saba')
Plantain (cooking)
–
Plantains served over fried
pacu.
12.
Breadfruit
–
Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry and jackfruit family originating in the South Pacific and that was eventually spread to the rest of Oceania. Its name is derived from the texture of the ripe fruit when cooked, similar to freshly baked bread. According to DNA fingerprinting studies, breadfruit has its origins in the region of Oceania from New Guinea through the Indo-Malayan Archipelago to western Micronesia, the trees have been widely planted in tropical regions elsewhere, including lowland Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean. In addition to the serving as a staple food in many cultures. Sir Joseph Banks and others saw the value of breadfruit as a highly productive food in 1769, in 1787, William Bligh was appointed Captain of the HMS Bounty, and ordered to proceed to the South Pacific to collect the plants. Although Bligh won the Royal Society medal for his efforts, the introduction was not entirely successful, Breadfruit trees grow to a height of 26 m. The large and thick leaves are cut into pinnate lobes. All parts of the tree yield latex, which is useful for boat caulking, the trees are monoecious, with male and female flowers growing on the same tree. The male flowers emerge first, followed shortly afterward by the female flowers, the latter grow into capitula, which are capable of pollination just three days later. Pollination occurs mainly by bats, but cultivated varieties produce fruit without pollination. The compound, false fruit develops from the perianth, and originates from 1. Breadfruit is one of the food plants, with a single tree producing up to 200 or more grapefruit-sized fruits per season. In the South Pacific, the trees yield 50 to 150 fruits per year, usually round, productivity varies between wet and dry areas. Studies in Barbados indicate a potential of 16 to 32 tons per hectare. The ovoid fruit has a surface, and each fruit is divided into many achenes, each achene surrounded by a fleshy perianth. Most selectively bred cultivars have seedless fruit, whereas seeded varieties are mainly for their edible seeds. Breadfruit is usually propagated using root cuttings, Breadfruit is closely related to the breadnut, from which it might have been naturally selected. It is noticeably similar in appearance to its relative of the same genus, Breadfruit has hundreds of varieties and thousands of common names varying according to its geographic distribution, and is cultivated in some 90 countries
Breadfruit
–
Breadfruit
Breadfruit
–
Breadfruit tree planted in
Honolulu, Hawaii
Breadfruit
–
The fruit of the breadfruit tree - whole, sliced lengthwise and in cross-section
Breadfruit
–
Drawing of breadfruit by
John Frederick Miller
13.
Tuber
–
Tubers are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. They are used for the plants perennation, to energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing season. Stem tubers form from thickened rhizomes or stolons, common plant species with stem tubers include potato and yam. Some sources also treat modified lateral roots under the definition, these are encountered in sweet potato, cassava, the term originates from Latin tuber, meaning lump, bump, swelling. Some sources define the term tuber to mean only structures derived from stems, a stem tuber forms from thickened rhizomes or stolons. The top sides of the tuber produce shoots that grow into stems and leaves. They tend to form at the sides of the parent plant and are most often located near the soil surface, the underground stem tuber is normally a short-lived storage and regenerative organ developing from a shoot that branches off a mature plant. The offsprings or new tubers are attached to a parent tuber or form at the end of a hypogeogenous rhizome, some plants also form smaller tubers and/or tubercules which act like seeds, producing small plants that resemble seedlings. Stem tubers generally start off as enlargements of the section of a seedling. Tuberous begonia, yams, and Cyclamen are commonly grown stem tubers, mignonette vine produces aerial stem tubers on 12-to-25-foot-tall vines, the tubers fall to the ground and grow. Enlarged stolons thicken to develop into storage organs, the tuber has all the parts of a normal stem, including nodes and internodes. The nodes are the eyes and each has a leaf scar, the nodes or eyes are arranged around the tuber in a spiral fashion beginning on the end opposite the attachment point to the stolon. The terminal bud is produced at the farthest point away from the stolon attachment, internally, a tuber is filled with starch stored in enlarged parenchyma like cells. The inside of a tuber has the cell structures of any stem, including a pith, vascular zones. The tuber is produced in one growing season and used to perennate the plant, as the main shoot develops from the tuber, the base of the shoot close to the tuber produces adventitious roots and lateral buds on the shoot. The shoot also produces stolons that are long etiolated stems, the stolon elongates during long days with the presence of high auxins levels that prevent root growth off of the stolon. Before new tuber formation begins, the stolon must be a certain age, the enzyme lipoxygenase makes a hormone, jasmonic acid, which is involved in the control of potato tuber development. The stolons are easily recognized when potato plants are grown from seeds, as the plants grow, stolons are produced around the soil surface from the nodes
Tuber
–
Oca tubers
Tuber
–
Freshly dug sweet potato plants with tubers.
14.
Sweet potato
–
The sweet potato is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the morning glory family Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting, tuberous roots are a root vegetable, in some parts of the English-speaking world, sweet potatoes are locally known by other names such as kumara, but people usually confused it with yam due to their similar appearances. The young leaves and shoots are eaten as greens. The sweet potato is only related to the potato and does not belong to the nightshade family Solanaceae. The plant is a perennial vine, bearing alternate heart-shaped or palmately lobed leaves. The edible tuberous root is long and tapered, with a smooth skin whose color ranges between yellow, orange, red, brown, purple, and beige and its flesh ranges from beige through white, red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, and purple. Sweet potato cultivars with white or pale yellow flesh are less sweet and moist than those with red, Ipomoea batatas is native to the tropical regions in the Americas. Of the approximately 50 genera and more than 1,000 species of Convolvulaceae, I. batatas is the crop plant of major importance—some others are used locally. The genus Ipomoea that contains the sweet potato also includes several garden flowers called morning glories, some cultivars of Ipomoea batatas are grown as ornamental plants under the name tuberous morning glory, used in a horticultural context. To add to the confusion, a different crop plant, the oca, is called a yam in many parts of Polynesia, the United States Department of Agriculture requires that the label yam always be accompanied by sweet potato in U. S. retail sales of sweet potato. Although the sweet potato is not closely related botanically to the common potato, the first Europeans to taste sweet potatoes were members of Christopher Columbuss expedition in 1492. Later explorers found many cultivars under an assortment of local names, the Spanish combined this with the Quechua word for potato, papa, to create the word patata for the common potato. The first record of the sweet potato is found in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1775. In Argentina, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic the sweet potato is called batata, in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Central America, and the Philippines, the sweet potato is known as camote, derived from the Nahuatl word camotli. In New Zealand, the most common cultivar is the red cultivar called kumara, a derived from the Māori name kūmara. Kumara is particularly popular as a food, or in contemporary cuisine as kumara chips, often served with sour cream. Occasionally, shops in Australia will label purple cultivars as purple sweet potato to denote the difference to the other cultivars, about 95% of Australias production is of the orange cultivar named Beauregard, originally from North America, known simply as sweet potato. A reddish-purple cultivar, Northern Star, is 4% of production and is sold as kumara, the origin and domestication of sweet potato is thought to be in either Central America or South America
Sweet potato
–
Sweet Potato
Sweet potato
Sweet potato
–
Sweet potato field in Katori, Japan
Sweet potato
–
Sweet potato tubers with different skin colors, on sale in Indonesia. Locally these are known as ubi jalar (creeping yam).
15.
Cassava
–
Manihot esculenta is a woody shrub native to South America of the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It is extensively cultivated as a crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root. Though it is often called yuca in Spanish and in the United States, it differs from the yucca, Cassava, when dried to a powdery extract, is called tapioca, its fermented, flaky version is named garri. Cassava is the third-largest source of carbohydrates in the tropics, after rice. Cassava is a staple food in the developing world, providing a basic diet for over half a billion people. It is one of the most drought-tolerant crops, capable of growing on marginal soils, Nigeria is the worlds largest producer of cassava, while Thailand is the largest exporter of dried cassava. Cassava is classified as sweet or bitter. Like other roots and tubers, both bitter and sweet varieties of cassava contain antinutritional factors and toxins, with the bitter varieties containing much larger amounts, the more toxic varieties of cassava are a fall-back resource in times of famine or food insecurity in some places. Farmers often prefer the bitter varieties because they deter pests, animals, the cassava root is long and tapered, with a firm, homogeneous flesh encased in a detachable rind, about 1 mm thick, rough and brown on the outside. Commercial cultivars can be 5 to 10 cm in diameter at the top, a woody vascular bundle runs along the roots axis. The flesh can be chalk-white or yellowish, Cassava roots are very rich in starch and contain small amounts of calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin C. However, they are poor in protein and other nutrients, in contrast, cassava leaves are a good source of protein, but deficient in the amino acid methionine and possibly tryptophan. Forms of the domesticated species can also be found growing in the wild in the south of Brazil. By 4,600 BC, manioc pollen appears in the Gulf of Mexico lowlands, the oldest direct evidence of cassava cultivation comes from a 1, 400-year-old Maya site, Joya de Cerén, in El Salvador. With its high potential, it had become a staple food of the native populations of northern South America, southern Mesoamerica. Cassava was a food of pre-Columbian peoples in the Americas and is often portrayed in indigenous art. The Moche people often depicted yuca in their ceramics, spaniards in their early occupation of Caribbean islands did not want to eat cassava or maize, which they considered insubstantial, dangerous, and not nutritious. They much preferred foods from Spain, specifically wheat bread, olive oil, red wine, and meat, for these Christians in the New World, cassava was not suitable for communion since it could not undergo transubstantiation and become the body of Christ
Cassava
–
Cassava
Cassava
Cassava
–
Unprocessed roots
Cassava
–
Leaf
16.
Industrial agriculture
–
Intensive farming or intensive agriculture is any of various types of agriculture that involve higher levels of input and output per unit of agricultural land area. It is characterised by a low ratio, higher use of inputs such as capital and labour. This is in contrast to agriculture in which the inputs per unit land are lower. The term intensive has various senses, some of which refer to organic farming methods and others of which refer to nonorganic, both increase the yields of food and fiber per acre as compared to traditional animal husbandry. In CAFO, feed is brought to the animals, while in MIRG the animals are repeatedly moved to fresh forage. Most commercial agriculture is intensive in one or more ways, forms that rely especially heavily on industrial methods are often called industrial agriculture, which is characterised by innovations designed to increase yield. Techniques include planting multiple crops per year, reducing the frequency of fallow years, intensive farms are widespread in developed nations and increasingly prevalent worldwide. Most of the meat, dairy, eggs, fruits and vegetables available in supermarkets are produced by such farms, smaller intensive farms usually include higher inputs of labor and more often use sustainable intensive methods. The farming practices commonly found on farms are referred to as appropriate technology. These farms are widespread in both developed countries and worldwide, but are growing more rapidly. Most of the food available in specialty markets such as farmers markets is produced by these smallholder farms, agricultural development in Britain between the 16th century and the mid-19th century saw a massive increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, historians cited enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation, and selective breeding as the most important innovations. Industrial agriculture arose along with the Industrial Revolution, by the early 19th century, agricultural techniques, implements, seed stocks and cultivars had so improved that yield per land unit was many times that seen in the Middle Ages. The industrialization phase involved a process of mechanization. Horse-drawn machinery such as the McCormick reaper revolutionized harvesting, while inventions such as the cotton gin reduced the cost of processing, during this same period, farmers began to use steam-powered threshers and tractors, although they were expensive and dangerous. Mechanical harvesters, planters, transplanters and other equipment were then developed and these inventions increased yields and allowed individual farmers to manage increasingly large farms. The identification of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus as critical factors in plant growth led to the manufacture of synthetic fertilizers, in 1909 the Haber-Bosch method to synthesize ammonium nitrate was first demonstrated. Farmers adopting this approach were initially referred to as humus farmers, chemicals developed for use in World War II gave rise to synthetic pesticides
Industrial agriculture
–
Agriculture
Industrial agriculture
–
Early 20th century image of a tractor ploughing an
alfalfa field.
Industrial agriculture
–
A commercial chicken house raising broiler pullets for meat.
Industrial agriculture
–
Satellite image of circular crop fields in
Haskell County, Kansas in late June 2001. Healthy, growing crops of
corn and
sorghum are green (Sorghum may be slightly paler).
Wheat is brilliant gold. Fields of brown have been recently harvested and plowed under or have lain in fallow for the year.
17.
Harvest
–
Harvesting is the process of gathering a ripe crop from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, on smaller farms with minimal mechanization, harvesting is the most labor-intensive activity of the growing season. On large mechanized farms, harvesting utilizes the most expensive and sophisticated farm machinery, the term harvesting in general usage may include immediate postharvest handling, including cleaning, sorting, packing, and cooling. Harvest, a noun, came from the Old English word hærfest, meaning autumn, harvest-time, the harvest came to also mean the activity of reaping, gathering, and storing grain and other grown products during the autumn, and also the grain and other grown products themselves. Harvest was also verbified, To harvest means to reap, gather, people who harvest and equipment that harvests are harvesters, while they do it, they are harvesting. In history, crop failures and subsequent famines have triggered human migration, rural exodus, over years, unsustainable farming of land degrades soil fertility and diminishes crop yield. With a steadily growing population and local overpopulation, even slightly diminishing yields are already the equivalent to a partial harvest failure. Fortunately, fertilizers obviate the need for regeneration in the first place. Harvesting commonly refers to grain and produce, but also has other uses, the term harvest is also used in reference to harvesting grapes for wine. Within the context of irrigation, water harvesting refers to the collection, instead of harvest, the term exploit is also used, as in exploiting fisheries or water resources. Energy harvesting is the process of capturing and storing energy that would otherwise go unexploited, body harvesting, or cadaver harvesting, is the process of collecting and preparing cadavers for anatomical study. In a similar sense, organ harvesting is the removal of tissues or organs from a donor for purposes of transplanting. Harvesting or Domestic Harvesting in Canada refers to hunting, fishing, and plant gathering by First Nations, Métis, for example, in the Gwichin Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement, Harvesting means gathering, hunting, trapping or fishing. Similarly, in the Tlicho Land Claim and Self Government Agreement, Harvesting means, in relation to wildlife, hunting, trapping or fishing and, in relation to plants or trees, combine Harvester Harvest Harvest festival Overharvesting Threshing Winnowing
Harvest
–
Harvesting
agriculture in
Volgograd Oblast,
Russia
Harvest
–
Rye harvest on Gotland, Sweden, 1900–1910.
Harvest
–
Sugar beet harvester. Baden-Wurttemberg,
Germany.
Harvest
–
Vendangeurs
Beaumes-de-Venise in Vaucluse,
France
18.
Mill (grinding)
–
A mill is a device that breaks solid materials into smaller pieces by grinding, crushing, or cutting. Such comminution is an important unit operation in many processes, there are many different types of mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand, working animal, wind or water, today they are usually powered by electricity. The grinding of solid matters occurs under exposure of mechanical forces that trench the structure by overcoming of the interior bonding forces, after the grinding the state of the solid is changed, the grain size, the grain size disposition and the grain shape. Milling also refers to the process of breaking down, separating, sizing, aggregate milling processes are also used to remove or separate contamination or moisture from aggregate or soil and to produce dry fills prior to transport or structural filling. To calculate the needed grinding work against the grain size changing three half-empirical models are used and these can be related to the Hukki relationship between particle size and the energy required to break the particles. In stirred mills, the Hukki relationship does not apply and instead, a reliable value for the grain sizes dA and dE is d80. This value signifies that 80% of the matter has a smaller grain size. The Bonds grinding coefficient for different materials can be found in various literature, to evaluate the grinding results the grain size disposition of the source material and of the ground material is needed. Grinding degree is the ratio of the sizes from the grain disposition, pretended grinding degree Z a = d 1 a The discharge die gap a of the grinding machine is used for the ground solid matter in this formula. In materials processing a grinder is a machine for producing fine particle size reduction through attrition, see also crusher for mechanisms producing larger particles. A typical type of grinder is the ball mill. Ball mills normally operate with a ball charge of 30%. Ball mills are characterized by their diameter and longer length. The feed is at one end of the cylinder and the discharge is at the other, ball mills are commonly used in the manufacture of Portland cement and finer grinding stages of mineral processing, one example being the Sepro tyre drive Grinding Mill. Industrial ball mills can be as large as 8.5 m in diameter with a 22 MW motor, however, small versions of ball mills can be found in laboratories where they are used for grinding sample material for quality assurance. A rotating drum causes friction and attrition between steel rods and ore particles, but note that the term rod mill is also used as a synonym for a slitting mill, which makes rods of iron or other metal. Rod mills are less common than ball mills for grinding minerals, the rods used in the mill, usually a high-carbon steel, can vary in both the length and the diameter
Mill (grinding)
–
A tabletop hammer mill
Mill (grinding)
–
Principle of SAG Mill operation
19.
Flour
–
Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains or roots and used to make many different foods. While wheat is the most common base for flour, maize flour has been important in Mesoamerican cuisine since ancient times, rye flour is a constituent of bread in central Europe. The English word flour is originally a variant of the word flower, both derive from the Old French fleur or flour, which had the literal meaning blossom, and a figurative meaning the finest. The phrase fleur de farine meant the finest part of the meal, since flour resulted from the elimination of coarse, the earliest archaeological evidence for wheat seeds crushed between simple millstones to make flour dates to 6000 BC. The Romans were the first to grind seeds on cone mills, in 1879, at the beginning of the Industrial Era, the first steam mill was erected in London. In the 1930s, some began to be enriched with iron, niacin, thiamine. In the 1940s, mills started to enrich flour and folic acid was added to the list in the 1990s, an important problem of the industrial revolution was the preservation of flour. Transportation distances and a relatively slow distribution system collided with natural shelf life, the reason for the limited shelf life is the fatty acids of the germ, which react from the moment they are exposed to oxygen. This occurs when grain is milled, the fatty acids oxidize, depending on climate and grain quality, this process takes six to nine months. In the late 19th century, this process was too short for a production and distribution cycle. As vitamins, micronutrients and amino acids were completely or relatively unknown in the late 19th century, without the germ, flour cannot become rancid. Degermation started in densely populated areas and took approximately one generation to reach the countryside, heat-processed flour is flour where the germ is first separated from the endosperm and bran, then processed with steam, dry heat or microwave and blended into flour again. Milling of flour is accomplished by grinding grain between stones or steel wheels, today, stone-ground usually means that the grain has been ground in a mill in which a revolving stone wheel turns over a stationary stone wheel, vertically or horizontally with the grain in between. These terms are now applied broadly to uses of water. More recently, the Unifine mill, a mill, was developed in the mid-20th century. Home users have begun grinding their own flour from organic wheat berries on a variety of electric flour mills, the grinding process is not much different from grinding coffee but the mills are larger. This provides fresh flour with the benefits of wheat germ and fiber without spoilage, Flour contains a high proportion of starches, which are a subset of complex carbohydrates also known as polysaccharides. The kinds of used in cooking include all-purpose flour, self-rising flour
Flour
–
Three different kinds of wheat and rye flour. From left to right: wheat flour Type 550, wheat flour Type 1050, rye flour Type 1150
Flour
–
A field of wheat prior to harvesting
Flour
–
Flour being stored in large cloth sacks
Flour
–
A variety of types of flour and cereals sold at a bazaar in
Bishkek,
Kyrgyzstan
20.
Expeller pressing
–
Expeller pressing is a mechanical method for extracting oil from raw materials trademarked by Anderson International Corp. Mr. Valerius D. Anderson founded the V. D. Anderson Company in Cleveland, in 1900, Mr. V. D. Anderson created the first successful continuously operated Expeller® press. The raw materials are squeezed under high pressure in a single step, when used for the extraction of food oils, typical raw materials are nuts, seeds and algae, which are supplied to the press in a continuous feed. As the raw material is pressed, friction causes it to heat up, an expeller press is a screw-type machine that mainly presses oil seeds through a caged barrel-like cavity. Other materials used with an expeller press include but are not limited to meat by-products, synthetic rubber, raw materials enter one side of the press and waste products exit the other side. The machine uses friction and continuous pressure from the drives to move. The oil seeps through small openings that do not allow seed fiber solids to pass through, afterward, the pressed seeds are formed into a hardened cake, which is removed from the machine. Pressure involved in expeller pressing creates heat in the range of 140–210 °F, some companies claim that they use a cooling apparatus to reduce this temperature to protect certain properties of the oils being extracted. Expeller processing cannot remove every last trace of liquid from the raw material, a significant amount remains trapped inside of the cake left over after pressing. Some raw materials, however, do not release oil by simple expelling, in order to remove oil from commodities that do not respond to expelling or to extract the final traces of oil after expelling, it is necessary to use solvent extraction. The earliest expeller presses utilized a continuous screw design, the compression screws were much like the screws of a screw conveyor—that is, the helicoid flighting started at one end and ended at the other. Valerius Anderson invented the interrupted screw design and patented it in the year 1900 and he wrote that brewers slops, slaughterhouse refuse and other soft and mushy materials dewater poorly in continuous screw presses. His invention consisted of putting interruptions in the flighting of a compression screw and it was much like having a hanger bearing in a screw conveyor, there is no flighting on the shaft at that point, so material tends to stop moving and pile up. It is only after solids accumulate in the gap that the downstream flighting catches material, when this happens, material is forced along its way. The result is better dewatering and thus a more consistent press cake, after the 1900 patent, a major improvement was made with the addition of resistor teeth. Fitted into the gaps where there is no flighting, these increase the agitation within the press. As the years went by, applications of the interrupted screw design were expanded beyond slippery and this took place because competing continuous screw presses worked best only under conditions of constant feed, at constant consistency. If either the consistency or the flow rate diminished, squeezing would diminish until it was inadequate for proper moisture removal, at the same time, if the consistency increased, the press could jam
Expeller pressing
–
An expeller used for expeller pressing
Expeller pressing
–
Coconut oil is expelled from
copra at an
oil mill in
Tripunithura,
Kerala,
India
21.
Commodity market
–
A commodity market is a market that trades in primary economic sector rather than manufactured products. Soft commodities are products such as wheat, coffee, cocoa. Hard commodities are mined, such as gold and oil, Investors access about 50 major commodity markets worldwide with purely financial transactions increasingly outnumbering physical trades in which goods are delivered. Futures contracts are the oldest way of investing in commodities, Futures are secured by physical assets. Commodity markets can include physical trading and derivatives trading using spot prices, forwards, futures, farmers have used a simple form of derivative trading in the commodity market for centuries for price risk management. A financial derivative is an instrument whose value is derived from a commodity termed an underlier. Derivatives are either exchange-traded or over-the-counter, derivatives such as futures contracts, Swaps, Exchange-traded Commodities, forward contracts have become the primary trading instruments in commodity markets. Futures are traded on regulated commodities exchanges, Over-the-counter contracts are privately negotiated bilateral contracts entered into between the contracting parties directly. Exchange-traded funds began to feature commodities in 2003, Gold ETFs are based on electronic gold that does not entail the ownership of physical bullion, with its added costs of insurance and storage in repositories such as the London bullion market. According to the World Gold Council, ETFs allow investors to be exposed to the market without the risk of price volatility associated with gold as a physical commodity. Commodity-based money and commodity markets in an early form are believed to have originated in Sumer between 4500 BC and 4000 BC. Sumerians first used clay tokens sealed in a vessel, then clay writing tablets to represent the amount—for example. These promises of time and date of delivery resemble futures contract, early civilizations variously used pigs, rare seashells, or other items as commodity money. Since that time traders have sought ways to simplify and standardize trade contracts, Gold and silver markets evolved in classical civilizations. At first the precious metals were valued for their beauty and intrinsic worth and were associated with royalty, in time, they were used for trading and were exchanged for other goods and commodities, or for payments of labor. Gold, measured out, then became money, golds scarcity, unique density and the way it could be easily melted, shaped, and measured made it a natural trading asset. Beginning in the late 10th century, commodity markets grew as a mechanism for allocating goods, labor, land, indeed, the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, often cited as the first stock exchange, originated as a market for the exchange of commodities. Early trading on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange often involved the use of sophisticated contracts, including short sales, forward contracts
Commodity market
–
Financial markets
Commodity market
–
Chicago Board of Trade Futures market
22.
Canola
–
B. campestris L. or Brassica juncea. To be called canola, the oil must contain less than 2% erucic acid, health concerns center around the fact that standard production may leave trace amounts of chemical solvent and that non-organic canola may be made from plants that have been genetically modified. It is also used as a source of biodiesel, in the 1970s, the Rapeseed Association of Canada chose the name canola to represent Can for Canada, and ola for oil. One dictionary purports that it stands for Can + o + l + a, Canola was developed through conventional plant breeding from rapeseed, an oilseed plant already used in ancient civilization as a fuel. The word rape in rapeseed comes from the Latin word rapum meaning turnip, turnip, rutabaga, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, mustard, and many other vegetables are related to the two natural canola varieties commonly grown, which are cultivars of B. napus and B. rapa. The change in name serves to distinguish it from natural rapeseed oil, Brassica oilseed varieties are some of the oldest plants cultivated by humanity, with documentation of its use in India 4,000 years ago, and use in China and Japan 2,000 years ago. Its use in Northern Europe for oil lamps is documented to the 13th century and its use was limited until the development of steam power, when machinists found rapeseed oil clung to water- and steam-washed metal surfaces better than other lubricants. World War II caused high demand for the oil as a lubricant for the increasing number of steam engines in naval. When the war blocked European and Asian sources of rapeseed oil, a shortage developed. After the war, demand declined sharply, and farmers began to look for other uses for the plant, Rapeseed oil extracts were first put on the market in 1956–1957 as food products, but these suffered from several unacceptable characteristics. Rapeseed oil had a taste and a disagreeable greenish color. It also contained a concentration of erucic acid. Feed meal from the plant also was not particularly appealing to livestock. A variety developed in 1998 is considered to be the most disease- and this and other recent varieties have been produced using genetic engineering. In 2011, 26% of the acres sown were genetically modified canola, Canola was originally a trademark, but is now a generic term for edible varieties of rapeseed oil in North America and Australia. In Canada, a definition of canola is codified in Canadian law. As of the 2013/2014 season, production in the ten leading territories was, Rapeseed is traded on the Euronext exchange. Canola oil is made at a facility by slightly heating
Canola
–
Close-up of rapeseed blooms
Canola
–
Canola flower
Canola
–
Canola field in
New South Wales, Australia
Canola
–
Canola being grown in
South Africa just outside of the City of
Cape Town.
Table Mountain is clearly visible in the far right. Canola is a relatively new crop in the country and was first cultivated in the early 1990s.
23.
Maize
–
Maize, also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, the leafy stalk of the plant produces separate pollen and ovuliferous inflorescences or ears, which are fruits, yielding kernels or seeds. Maize kernels are used in cooking as a starch. Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, recent research modified this view somewhat, scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication. The Olmec and Mayans cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked and its believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. The region developed a network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Nevertheless, recent data indicates that the spread of maize took place even earlier, according to Piperno, A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since then, even earlier dates have been published, the study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths and this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Before they were domesticated, maize plants only grew small,25 millimetres long corn cobs, Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. Approximately 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol, genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe, Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation. At another level, Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, that not only would they weaken, despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize and archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates and it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbuss voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant and it is known by other names around the world. The word corn outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize, this usage started as a shortening of Indian corn. Indian corn primarily means maize, but can more specifically to multicolored flint corn used for decoration
Maize
–
Maize
Maize
–
A maize heap at the harvest site, India
Maize
–
Many small male flowers make up the male inflorescence, called the tassel.
Maize
–
Female inflorescence, with young
silk
24.
Rice
–
Rice is the seed of the grass species Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima. As a cereal grain, it is the most widely consumed staple food for a part of the worlds human population. It is the agricultural commodity with the third-highest worldwide production, after sugarcane and maize, wild rice, from which the crop was developed, may have its native range in Australia. Chinese legends attribute the domestication of rice to Shennong, the emperor of China. Genetic evidence has shown that rice originates from a single domestication 8, previously, archaeological evidence had suggested that rice was domesticated in the Yangtze River valley region in China. From East Asia, rice was spread to Southeast and South Asia, Rice was introduced to Europe through Western Asia, and to the Americas through European colonization. There are many varieties of rice and culinary preferences tend to vary regionally, in some areas such as the Far East or Spain, there is a preference for softer and stickier varieties. Rice, a monocot, is grown as an annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial. The rice plant can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and it has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long, the edible seed is a grain 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick. Rice cultivation is well-suited to countries and regions with low costs and high rainfall, as it is labor-intensive to cultivate. However, rice can be grown practically anywhere, even on a hill or mountain area with the use of water-controlling terrace systems. Although its parent species are native to Asia and certain parts of Africa, centuries of trade, the traditional method for cultivating rice is flooding the fields while, or after, setting the young seedlings. The name wild rice is used for species of the genera Zizania and Porteresia. The Greek word is the source of all European words, the origin of the Greek word is unclear. It is sometimes held to be from the Tamil word அரிசி, however, Krishnamurti disagrees with the notion that Old Tamil arici is the source of the Greek term, and proposes that it was borrowed from descendants of Proto-Dravidian *wariñci instead. The varieties of rice are typically classified as long-, medium-, the grains of long-grain rice tend to remain intact after cooking, medium-grain rice becomes more sticky. Medium-grain rice is used for dishes, for risotto in Italy
Rice
–
A mixture of brown, white, and red indica rice, also containing
wild rice, Zizania species
Rice
–
Oryza sativa with small
wind-pollinated flowers
Rice
–
Cooked brown rice from Bhutan
Rice
–
Rice can come in many shapes, colours and sizes. Photo by the
IRRI.
25.
Grass
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Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns, Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath, with ca 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae. Grasslands such as savannah and prairie grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40. 5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many habitats, including wetlands, forests. Though commonly called grasses, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family, the rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales. The name Poaceae was given by John Hendley Barnhart in 1895, based on the tribe Poeae described in 1814 by Robert Brown, the term is derived from the Ancient Greek πόα. Grasses include some of the most versatile plant life-forms, a cladogram shows subfamilies and approximate species numbers in brackets, Before 2005, fossil findings indicated that grasses evolved around 55 million years ago. Recent findings of grass-like phytoliths in Cretaceous dinosaur coprolites have pushed this back to 66 million years ago. In 2011, revised dating of the origins of the rice tribe Oryzeae suggested a date as early as 107 to 129 Mya, a multituberculate mammal with grass-eating adaptations seems to suggest that grasses were already around at 120 mya. This separation occurred within the short time span of about 4 million years. Grass leaves are always alternate and distichous, and have parallel veins. Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem, the leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths, which discourage grazing animals, some, such as sword grass, are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath, flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes, the part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets, a floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma—and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic—maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated, the perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules, that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea, these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, the fruit of grasses is a caryopsis, in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall
Grass
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Grass
Grass
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Zoysia grass flower
Grass
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A
kangaroo eating grass
Grass
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Wind-blown grass in the
Valles Caldera in
New Mexico
26.
Spelt
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Spelt, also known as dinkel wheat, or hulled wheat, is a species of wheat cultivated since approximately 5000 BC. Spelt is sometimes considered a subspecies of the related species common wheat. It is a wheat, which means it has six sets of chromosomes. Over the years 2004 to 2014, spelt gained widespread popularity as a substitute for making artisan breads, pasta. It is a species known from genetic evidence to have originated as a naturally occurring hybrid of a domesticated tetraploid wheat such as emmer wheat. The much later appearance of spelt in Europe might thus be the result of a later, second, recent DNA evidence supports an independent origin for European spelt through this hybridisation. Whether spelt has two origins in Asia and Europe, or single origin in the Near East, is currently unresolved. In Greek mythology spelt was a gift to the Greeks from the goddess Demeter, being a sailing people, the Greeks taught the rest of the world how to use, cultivate and honour zeiá. Remains of spelt have been found in some later Neolithic sites in Central Europe, during the Bronze Age, spelt spread widely in central Europe. In the Iron Age, spelt became a wheat species in southern Germany and Switzerland. References to the cultivation of wheat in Biblical times, in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and in ancient Greece are incorrect. In the Middle Ages, spelt was cultivated in parts of Switzerland, Tyrol, Spelt was introduced to the United States in the 1890s. In the 20th century, spelt was replaced by wheat in almost all areas where it was still grown. The organic farming movement revived its popularity somewhat toward the end of the century, in a 100 gram serving, uncooked spelt provides 338 calories and is an excellent source of protein, dietary fiber, several B vitamins and numerous dietary minerals. Richest nutrient contents include manganese, phosphorus and niacin, cooking substantially reduces many nutrient contents. Spelt contains about 70% total carbohydrates, including 11% as dietary fiber, in comparison to hard red winter wheat, spelt has a more soluble protein matrix characterized by a higher gliadin, glutenin ratio. Spelt flour is becoming more easily available, Spelt bread is sold in health food shops and some bakeries in an increasing variety of types of loaf, similar in colour to light rye breads but usually with a slightly sweet and nutty flavour. Biscuits, crackers, and pretzels are also produced, but are likely to be found in a specialty bakery or health food store than in a regular grocers shop
Spelt
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Spelt
Spelt
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Spelt, without and with
husks
Spelt
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History
27.
Barley
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Barley, a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains, particularly in Eurasia as early as 10,000 years ago, Barley has been used as animal fodder, as a source of fermentable material for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods. It is used in soups and stews, and in barley bread of various cultures, Barley grains are commonly made into malt in a traditional and ancient method of preparation. In 2014, barley was ranked fourth among grains in quantity produced behind corn, rice, the Old English word for barley was bære, which traces back to Proto-Indo-European and is cognate to the Latin word farina flour. The direct ancestor of modern English barley in Old English was the derived adjective bærlic, the first citation of the form bærlic in the Oxford English Dictionary dates to around 966 CE, in the compound word bærlic-croft. The underived word bære survives in the north of Scotland as bere, the word barn, which originally meant barley-house, is also rooted in these words. Barley is a member of the grass family and it is a self-pollinating, diploid species with 14 chromosomes. The wild ancestor of domesticated barley, Hordeum vulgare subsp, spontaneum, is abundant in grasslands and woodlands throughout the Fertile Crescent area of Western Asia and northeast Africa, and is abundant in disturbed habitats, roadsides and orchards. Outside this region, the barley is less common and is usually found in disturbed habitats. However, in a study of genome-wide diversity markers, Tibet was found to be a center of domestication of cultivated barley. Wild barley has a spike, upon maturity, the spikelets separate. Domesticated barley has nonshattering spikes, making it easier to harvest the mature ears. The nonshattering condition is caused by a mutation in one of two linked genes known as Bt1 and Bt2, many cultivars possess both mutations. The nonshattering condition is recessive, so varieties of barley that exhibit this condition are homozygous for the mutant allele, spikelets are arranged in triplets which alternate along the rachis. In wild barley, only the central spikelet is fertile, while the two are reduced. This condition is retained in certain cultivars known as two-row barleys, a pair of mutations result in fertile lateral spikelets to produce six-row barleys. Recent genetic studies have revealed that a mutation in one gene, two-row barley has a lower protein content than six-row barley, thus a more fermentable sugar content. High-protein barley is best suited for animal feed, Malting barley is usually lower protein which shows more uniform germination, needs shorter steeping, and has less protein in the extract that can make beer cloudy
Barley
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Barley
Barley
Barley
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The cross-section of a barley root
Barley
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Two-row and six-row barley
28.
Oat
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The oat, sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name. While oats are suitable for consumption as oatmeal and rolled oats. The wild ancestor of Avena sativa and the related minor crop. Genetic evidence shows the forms of A. sterilis grew in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. Domesticated oats appear relatively late, and far from the Near East, oats, like rye, are usually considered a secondary crop, i. e. derived from a weed of the primary cereal domesticates wheat and barley. As these cereals spread westwards into cooler, wetter areas, this may have favored the oat weed component, oats are best grown in temperate regions. Oats are a plant, and can be planted either in autumn or in the spring. Oats have numerous uses in foods, most commonly, they are rolled or crushed into oatmeal, oatmeal is chiefly eaten as porridge, but may also be used in a variety of baked goods, such as oatcakes, oatmeal cookies and oat bread. Oats are also an ingredient in many cold cereals, in particular muesli, historical attitudes towards oats have varied. Oat bread was first manufactured in Britain, where the first oat bread factory was established in 1899, in Scotland, they were, and still are, held in high esteem, as a mainstay of the national diet. In Scotland, a dish was made by soaking the husks from oats for a week, so the fine, floury part of the meal remained as sediment to be strained off, boiled and eaten. Oats are also used there as a thickener in soups. Oats are also used as feed for horses when extra carbohydrates. The oat hull may be crushed for the horse to easily digest the grain. They may be given alone or as part of a food pellet. Cattle are also fed oats, either whole or ground into a coarse flour using a mill, burr mill. Winter oats may be grown as a groundcover and ploughed under in the spring as a green fertilizer. They also can be used for pasture, they can be grazed a while, then allowed to head out for grain production, Oat straw is prized by cattle and horse producers as bedding, due to its soft, relatively dust-free, and absorbent nature
Oat
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Oat
Oat
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Closeup of oat florets (small flowers)
Oat
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Oat grains in their
husks
Oat
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A sample of oat
bran
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