Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
thin pieces and added to various dishes. Rhubarb is frequently cooked into a souplike
mixture that is sweetened to taste before eating.
4.10.5 World Production
The major world producer (on the basis of asparagus hectares) is China, producing
about 12 percent of the world's production. The other top producers—Peru, the
United States, Germany, and Mexico—each produces around 1 percent of the
world's production.
‡,2
Based on asparagus China is by far the world's largest producer
of stem crops, producing nearly eight times more than any of the other top producers.
There are other petiole and stem vegetables, however, only small hectares are
planted even in large countries such as the United States, Canada, and Asia. It is
very common to find these grown in gardens and on small hectarages for home and
local consumption. In spite of this, these vegetables are commonly found in the
markets of many countries and are used extensively as food, snacks, and as additions
to many dishes. Thus world use of these vegetables is not reflected in the large
commercial-scale production records.
4.11
ROOT VEGETABLES
4.11.1 Climatic Adaptation
Here we define root vegetables as those crops where the part of the plant that is eaten
grows below ground,
§§
for example, radish and beet; see Figures 4.23 and 4.24. These
vegetables are grown in a wide range of climates, that is, K¨ ppen zones A to E in most
cases, as seen in Table 4.7, and are thus common food sources throughout the world.
4.11.2 Importance in Human Nutrition
As can be seen in Figure 4.25 all the root vegetables have small amounts of protein and
very small amounts of fat. Although the figure does not show it, all have some fat varying
between 0.008 and 0.28 g/100 g of fresh raw root. Calorie and carbohydrate are the most
abundant components of these vegetables, and fiber content is higher than either protein
or fat content, making these vegetables an excellent source of fiber in the diet.
4.11.3 Cultivation
Because the edible portion grows below ground, these crops grow best in sandy or high
organic matter soil. Thus large additions of organic matter to soil can greatly increase
‡
Calculated from FAOSTAT (http://faostat.fao.org) data for 2004 and 2005 on the basis of hectares of
asparagus.
§§
In a strict agronomic or botanical sense these may belong to different groups of plants and the edible portion
a different plant part.
