What is a cultural plant?

A cultivated plant is what people growspecifically to later convert it into a food product, animal feed, medical product, industrial raw materials and much more. In general, it brings a lot of benefit to man.

Cultivation

Currently, there is a huge numbercultural plants that people have received, domesticating and cultivating wild plants. You can list them for a very long time. Cultivation includes genetic engineering, hybridization, and selection. All these methods are very common today. People have learned to derive improved and edible cultivated plants, which can not be said about their wild relatives. They differ in many ways.

Features of cultivated and wild plants

Cultivated and wild plants are twocompletely different concepts. Do not confuse them. In most cases, the wild-growing precursors of cultivated plants are not suitable for eating and cooking. People risk eating them only in case of hunger, complete lack of food. However, it is fair to say that some wild plants have medicinal properties and benefit the body, which is unusual for their cultural "descendants." It is very important to know.

Vavilov's famous book

In the publication "Centers of Origin of Culturalplants ", whose author is Vavilov, is told in detail about the transformation of wild plants into cultural ones, is it not interesting to get acquainted with the way this process was going on? In the same book you can see drawings depicting cultivated plants. It is recommended for general development to reflect on what they look like to wild plants or to differ from them.Many cultural plants were born in laboratories where scientists brought them out, and over time their list is increasing, new names are added to it, because villages The development and genetic engineering are developing rapidly.

Scientists provide the population with an increasing number of cultivated plants, suitable for eating. They include many hybrids of already existing species.

Centers of origin of cultivated plants

These are geographical areas, where in large numbersthere are some or other of their varieties. First Vavilov described eight such areas. However, in later writings he spoke of seven zones. Everyone needs to know at least a little about them.

Tropical South Asian region. Which countries are included here? Tropical India, Southern China, Indochina, the island part of Southeast Asia. This center is notable for the impressive abundance of cultivated plants (about 1/3 of all species now open). Here you can find a huge amount of vegetables and fruits, as well as sugar cane.
East Asian region. What states does it include? East and Central China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea. Here grows soy, there are many vegetables and fruits, some varieties of millet. This area is also very prolific - 20% of cultivated plants are concentrated in this zone. Impressive, is not it? And what about cultivated plants? This, as we found out earlier, is what people grow, pursuing certain goals.
South-West Asian region. What is it about? First and foremost, it concerns Minor and Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, North-West India. Here there were some kinds of wheat, a large number of grains, grapes, rye, legumes, fruit. In this area grows 14% of the cultural flora known in the world.
The Mediterranean region. These are the states scattered along the shores of the same sea. This area, where the most influential ancient civilizations were located, produces about 11% of the varieties of the cultural flora. They include olives, many vegetables (for example, cabbage) and a large number of plants intended for feed (single-flowered lentils, clover). This is a very generous territory that feeds us. A cultural plant is the wealth of the earth.
The Abyssinian region.This is a fairly small area of the African continent with very unusual cultivated plants. Most likely, this is an old center of original farming. Here grow sorghum, chickpeas (oilseeds), one variety of bananas, some interesting types of barley, and also wheat.
Central American region.This includes South Mexico. This region is rich in corn, cocoa, beans, long-fiber cotton, some cucurbitaceous. About 90 varieties of cultivated flora grow here. This is quite a lot. Do not forget that a cultivated plant is our livelihood, which means that we must treat the flora carefully.
South American (Andi) region.From the title it is clear what belongs to this center. It includes some areas of the Andean mountains along the South American west coast. There appeared a large number of tuberous (for example, potatoes), many medicinal plants (cinchona, coca bush, etc.). Local flora is diverse. It's good that our land is so generous, because a cultivated plant is something that we could not live without.

Conclusion

Now you know what cultural plants are,and never confuse them with wild growing. You also know some of their names. This information must be remembered, it is always useful during life.