360 articles
Apple scab
Apple scab, caused by the fungus Venturia inaequalis (black spot), is the major fungal disease of apple and crabapple worldwide; ascospores from fallen leaves cause spring infections, conidia spread it all season.
AquaCrop
AquaCrop is a crop growth simulation model developed by the FAO that predicts yield and water productivity of herbaceous crops under varying water conditions, balancing accuracy with simplicity.
Arable land
Arable land is land used in most years for growing temporary crops that must be newly sown after each harvest, including land left temporarily fallow for under five years.
Arbor Day
Arbor Day, a tree-planting holiday founded by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska in 1872, first observed April 10, 1872 with about 1 million trees planted; National Arbor Day falls on the last Friday in April since Nixon's 1970 proclamation.
Arborist
Arborist: a professional trained in planting, caring for, and maintaining individual trees; also called tree trimmer or tree surgeon. Key facts: ISA Certified Arborist credential (voluntary, ISO 17024-accredited), duties from pruning to risk assessment, ISA founded 1924.
Artificial regeneration
Artificial regeneration is the re-establishment of a forest stand by direct seeding or planting nursery-grown seedlings instead of relying on natural seed fall, a practice recorded as early as 1368.
Avocado
Avocado (Persea americana), a Mesoamerican evergreen laurel tree domesticated over millennia, now the fastest-growing major tropical fruit: 2.8 Mt exported in 2024, projected 14 Mt production by 2034, with high water footprint concerns.
Avocado oil
Avocado oil, a fruit-pulp oil from Persea americana mesocarp (not the seed), is rich in oleic acid (>50%), lutein, vitamin E, and β-sitosterol; extracted by cold pressing, solvent, or SC-CO2, used in food and cosmetics.
B.R. Barwale
Badrinarayan Ramulal Barwale (1931–2017) was an Indian farmer and seed entrepreneur who founded Mahyco, India's first private seed company, and won the 1998 World Food Prize.
Banana production in the Caribbean
Banana production in the Caribbean is the cultivation of bananas across the Caribbean islands for export and domestic use, historically led by the Windward Islands and Jamaica.
Banana Xanthomonas wilt
Banana Xanthomonas wilt (BXW), caused by Xanthomonas campestris pv. musacearum, is a bacterial wilt of banana, plantain, and enset confined to Africa, spreading from Ethiopia and Uganda since 2001, causing up to 100% yield loss, and managed only by cultural practices.
Bathukamma (బతుకమ్మ)
Bathukamma (బతుకమ్మ), Telangana's nine-day floral festival for women during Navratri: flower stacks of gunuka and tangedu, circle songs, Saddula Bathukamma immersion, Maha Gauri worship, state festival since BRS era.
Battle for Grain
The Battle for Grain, or Battaglia del grano, was an agricultural campaign Mussolini's Fascist government proclaimed in Italy in 1925 to make the country self-sufficient in wheat.
BBCH scale
The BBCH scale is a standardized two-digit decimal code describing the phenological growth stages of crops and weeds, proposed in 1991 as an extension of the Zadoks cereal code.
Bihu (বিহু)
Bihu (বিহু) is Assam's set of three agricultural festivals: Rongali/Bohag Bihu in April (Assamese New Year), Bhogali/Magh Bihu in January (harvest feast), and Kongali/Kati Bihu in October, with Bihu dance, dhol, and pepa music.
Billhook
Billhook: curved-bladed European hand tool with inner cutting edge for hedgelaying, coppicing, pruning, and cutting small woody material; distinct from the machete, with regional British patterns and Roman-era ancestry.
Biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture: esoteric organic farming founded on Rudolf Steiner's 1924 Koberwitz Agriculture Course (GA 327), using biodynamic preparations, the farm-organism principle, and Demeter certification across roughly 6,900 farms and 253,000 hectares.
Biofortification
Biofortification is the increase of micronutrients such as iron, zinc, and provitamin A in staple crops through breeding, fertilization, or biotechnology, to fight hidden hunger.
Bitter pit
Bitter pit, a calcium-related physiological disorder of apple fruit (Malus domestica), produces sunken brown spots near the calyx that appear mainly after one to two months of cold storage; managed with calcium sprays, dips, and crop-load control.
Blood meal
Blood meal (dried slaughterhouse blood, CAS 90989-74-5) is a hemoglobin-rich powder with 10–13% organic nitrogen, used as an organic fertilizer, animal repellent, and livestock feed, and approved as an EU low-risk pesticide substance to 2036.
Boll weevil
Boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis), a Mexican snout beetle that entered Texas in 1892 and became the costliest U.S. cotton pest, over $22 billion in losses; eradicated from over 99 percent of U.S. cotton acreage by the APHIS program begun in 1978.
Bonsai (盆栽)
Bonsai (盆栽, penjing's Japanese descendant) is the art of growing miniature trees in shallow pots via pruning, wiring, and root restriction; most species are grown outdoors, with sizes from under 2 to over 60 inches.
Bordeaux wine
Bordeaux wine: PDO wines from the Gironde region of southwest France, blended mainly from Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon on the Left and Right Banks, ranked by the fixed 1855 classification of 88 classified growths.
Bread
Bread: leavened or unleavened baked staple made from flour-and-water dough; wheat is the main cereal, gluten traps fermentation gas; earliest known breadmaking at Shubayqa 1, Jordan, 14,400 years ago.
Caduceus Cellars
Caduceus Cellars is an Arizona winery in Jerome founded in 2004 by Tool singer Maynard James Keenan, sister label to Merkin Vineyards, farming 110 acres and producing about 14,000 cases yearly from Tempranillo, Nebbiolo, and Malvasia.
Canadian Tulip Festival
The Canadian Tulip Festival, also called Ottawa Tulipfest, is an annual spring festival held each May in Ottawa since 1953, marking the friendship between Canada and the Netherlands.
Cannabis cultivation
Cannabis cultivation, growing Cannabis sativa for hemp fiber, seed, medicine, and drugs; domesticated in East Asia about 12,000 years ago, now grown in at least 150 countries under legal and illicit regimes.
Capability Brown
Capability Brown (Lancelot Brown, 1716-1783), English landscape designer nicknamed for telling clients their estates had 'capability' for improvement; over 200 projects, Royal Gardener 1764, rolling lawns, serpentine lakes, Blenheim masterpiece.
Carol Klein
Carol Klein (born 1945, Walkden, Lancashire) is a British gardener, author, and BBC Gardeners' World co-presenter; founder of Glebe Cottage Plants, six Chelsea golds, Victoria Medal of Honour 2018, author of RHS Grow Your Own Veg and Hortobiography.
Cash crop
Cash crop: an agricultural crop grown for sale and profit rather than on-farm use, spanning coffee, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, sugar; tied to colonial plantations, Africa's 1890–1930 export boom, and food security trade-offs.