At 10:57 AM 12/4/2000, Bohmfalk, John wrote:
>Two different botany texts state that "Nine of the ten most economically
>important plants are grasses.", but neither text identifies all nine of
>them. They do identify wheat, rice, corn, barley, millet, oats and rye.
>What are the other two? Also, which non-grass is in the top ten? Is it
>potato?
Beans/legumes (soybean could be high), sweet potatoes and manioc as well as
sugar beet are up there for the non grass. Potato may take top spot
though. I assume this is world wide you are asking about.
Depending on whether banana is considered a grass, it is on the longer list
as is sorghum but I think Sugarcane takes top spot and may be in the top 10.
Calorie-wise, the top 10 are (or were 10 years ago) in order: Wheat, rice,
corn, potato, sweet potato, manioc, sugarcane, sugar beet, bean,
soybean. Though that doesn't necessarily reflect economic importance, I
suspect there is decent correlation (?)
Dave Starrett
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