Q- (a) Discuss two ways of incorporating desirable characteristics in crop varieties.
(b) What is intercropping? How are crops selected for intercropping?
Answer- (a) There are many ways to incorporate desirable characteristics in crop varieties. The two main methods to incorporate desirable characteristics in crop varieties are as follows:
1. Selection: The selection has started from the primitive man changing his mode of life from a nomad to an agriculturalist. The selection process is also of two types: Natural selection and Artificial selection.
2. Hybridisation: Hybridisation is the process of crossing of two plants differing from each other genotypically in one or more traits.
There are many objectives of hybridization. Some of the objectives are as follows:
1. To utilize and exploit the hybrid vagour.
2. To generate as well as increase the genetic variations through recombination.
3. To form or produce a single variety having combination of good characters.
(b) Intercropping is the growing of two or more crops simultaneously in the same field or piece of land in definite row pattern. This method is used to enhance or increase the production of crop per unit area. In intercropping the seeds are not mixed before sowing them in field.
The crops are chosen to be grown in inter cropping in such a way that one crop alternate with a few rows of a second crop.
For example: Soyabean + maize, Soyabean +bajara, Soyabean + lobia e.t.c. .