About the Book

Vegetable farming, growing of vegetable crops, primarily for use as human food. The term vegetable in its broadest sense refers to any kind of plant life or plant product, however, it refers to the fresh, edible portion of a herbaceous plant consumed in either raw or cooked form. The edible portion may be a root, such as rutabaga, beet, carrot, and sweet potato; a tuber or storage stem, such as potato and taro; the stem, as in asparagus and kohlrabi; a bud, such as Brussels sprouts; a bulb, such as onion and garlic; a petiole or leafstalk, such as celery and rhubarb; a leaf, such as cabbage, lettuce, parsley, spinach, and chive; an immature flower, such as cauliflower, broccoli, and artichoke; a seed, such as pea and Lima bean; the immature fruit, such as eggplant, cucumber, and sweet corn (maize); or the mature fruit, such as tomato and pepper.
Profitable vegetable farming requires attention to all production operations, including insect, disease, and weed control and efficient marketing. The kind of vegetable grown is mainly determined by consumer demands, which can be defined in terms of variety, size, tenderness, flavour, freshness, and type of pack. Effective management involves the adoption of techniques resulting in a steady flow of the desired amount of produce over the whole of the natural growing season of the crop. Many vegetables can be grown throughout the year in some climates, although yield per acre for a given kind of vegetable varies according to the growing season and region where the crop is produced.

Specific Requirements

Chapter on individual vegetable crop should be as per Heading and Subheadings provided below:

1. Introduction
a. Origin
b. Area and Distribution
c. Botany and Taxonomy
d. Morphology Characteristics
e. Varieties and Hybrids
2. Nutrition Composition
3. Types of Production
4. Nursery Raising
5. Production Factors and Techniques
a. Site
b. Climate
c. Soil Preparation and Management
d. Propagation
e. Planting
f. Transplanting Techniques
g. Sowing Time
h. Planting Distance
i. Irrigation
j. Fertilizer Application
k. Growth Regulators
6. Crop Protection and Management
a. Physiological Disorders
b. Weed Control
c. Disease
d. Insect and Pest
e. Frost Protection
7. Harvesting and Yield
8. Post-harvest Management
a. Pre-cooling
b. Grading
c. Packaging
d. Transportation
9. Agri-market operations and Selling
a. Selling