Crop Production and Crop Husbandry
This domain tests whether you can plan a crop enterprise: choose and establish a crop, manage nutrition, weeds, pests and diseases, then harvest and store the product without losses.
Classification and propagation
Crops are grouped as cereals, legumes, root and tuber crops, fibre crops, oil crops, vegetables and fodder. Propagation is by seed (sexual) or vegetatively by cuttings, tubers, suckers, rhizomes and grafting (asexual). Legumes fix nitrogen via Rhizobium and earn a place in rotations; continuous cereal cropping depletes nutrients and builds up soil-borne disease.
Field operations
Land preparation, timely planting at correct depth and spacing, fertilizer applied by the right method and time, weeding at critical stages, integrated pest management (resistant varieties, rotation, biological and chemical control), and harvesting at correct maturity. Storage requires low moisture - roughly 13% for maize grain - plus cool, dry, pest-proof conditions.
Worked example
Maize is planted at 75 cm between rows and 25 cm within rows. Plant population = 10,000 m² ÷ (0.75 × 0.25) = 10,000 ÷ 0.1875 = 53,333 plants per hectare. Reasoning: each plant occupies a rectangle of 0.1875 m², and one hectare contains 10,000 m². If germination and field survival together are 90%, sow about 59,000 seeds to achieve the target stand.
Traps that cost marks
Do not mix up between-row and within-row spacing. Fertilizer cannot compensate for drought, and excess nitrogen causes lodging and leafiness. 'Disease resistant' is not the same as 'drought tolerant'. Storing damp grain encourages mould and aflatoxin. Rotation is a disease and weed control tool, not just a nutrient strategy.