Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words from the text.

1. The main … raised by man are corn, barley, oats, rice, wheat and rye. 2. Unlike cereals … … as beets are grown because of the food value of their root. 3. … … include all grasses cut for hay, legumes, sorghum and corn. 4. The most important … cultivated throughout the world is potato. 5. The principle … crops are cotton, flax and hemp. 6. … … cannot produce seed the first year. 7. Cereal is a grass grown for its … grain.

Translate the sentences into Russian.

1.  Temperature is one of the most important environmental factors affecting crop growing. 2. Botanical classification is one based on the similarity of plant parts. 3. One can group plants according to the duration of their growth. 4. Perennial crops are the ones that grow for more than two years. 5. One should know the crops belonging to grass family. 6. They use traditional cultural practices in corn production but we use improved ones and obtain better results. 7. Most of our field crops belong to one of the two botanical families: the grasses and the legumes. 8. Annual crops are those that complete their life cycle in one season.

 

Find in the text the English sentences equivalent to the Russian sentences.

1. Цель классификации полевых культур – сгруппировать их либо согласно специфике их роста, либо согласно их использованию. 2. Согласно специфике их роста полевые культуры классифицируются как однолетние, двулетние и многолетние. 3. Образ жизни картофеля совершенно отличается от корнеплода. 4. Согласно применению полевые культуры классифицируются как злаки, бобовые, корнеплоды, кормовые культуры, волокнистые культуры и клубни. 5. Корнеплоды выращивают из-за пищевой ценности их корней. 6. Злаки включают кукурузу, пшеницу, овес, ячмень и рис. 7. Наиболее важным клубнем, возделываемым во всем мире, является картофель.

Answer the questions, make up the plan of text A and retell it.

1. What is the aim of classification of field crops? 2. According to what principles are crops classified? 3. How are field crops classified according to their growth habit? 4. How are field crops classified according to their use? 5. What are the main cereals raised by man? 6. What are legumes grown for? 7. What is the difference between root crops and tubers? 8. What are the fiber crops used for? 9. What is a forage crop?

 

Text B

Get acquainted with text B and answer the questions.

1.  How may crops be classified? 2. What is the second principle of grouping crops? 3. What are annual crops? 4. What plants are biennials? 5. How many seasons do perennials grow? 6. What are the most important and most often used classifications of plants? 7. What is botanical classification? 8. What two botanical families do you know? 9. What crops belong to the grass family? 10. Why are forage grasses important? What are they used for?

Botanical classification

Crops are variously grouped and classified. They may be classified as cultivated or row crops, such as corn, soybeans, and cotton; noncultivated crops, such as wheat and barley; and hay pasture crops, such as clover, alfalfa and many other small-seeded legumes and grasses.

Crops are also grouped according to the duration of their growth. Annual crops are those that complete their life cycle in one season. Biennials start their growth in one season but produce seed and die at the end of the second season. Perennials grow for more than two seasons, producing seeds each year. The most important and most often used classifications are botanical classification and agronomic classification.

Botanical classification is based upon similarity of plant parts. Most of our field crops belong to one of the two botanical families: the grasses and the legumes. The main food plants are known to belong to the grass family, including all cereal crops and about three fourths of the cultivated forage crops. Cereals are the world’s leading food and feed crops. They are grain-bearing grasses such as wheat, corn, rye, barley, oats etc. Forage grasses are the ones that are highly essential for the economic production of livestock products. Almost all grasses have hollow stems made up of nodes and internodes. The roots are fibrous. Grasses may be either annuals or perennials.

The legume family includes such large seeded legumes as field peas, field beans, soybeans and such nutritious forage crops as alfalfa and clovers. The plants of this family are the only ones growing in a symbiotic relationship with rhizobia bacteria. Multiplying in the nodules on the roots of the legume crops bacteria are able to fix free atmospheric nitrogen in their bodies and in the plant residues.

Plowing under these plants residues, one can increase soil fertility. Being high in protein content the legume crops are valued as food for man and farm animals. Legumes may be annual, biennials and perennials. The fruit is a pod containing from one to several seeds. Legumes have tap roots.

There are some other botanical families that include crop plants widely used by man. Such crops are potatoes, sugar beets, cotton, flax, buckwheat and others.