Crop diversity fruit trees and banana plants) are cloned. A single pest or disease could threaten a whole crop due to this uniformity ("genetic erosion"). A well-known historic case was the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1847, where a vital crop with low diversity was destroyed by a single fungus. Another example is when a disease caused by a fungus affected the monocultured 1970 US corn crop, causing a loss of over one billion dollars in production. A danger to agriculture is wheat rust, a pathogenic fungus causing reddish patches, coloured by its spores. A virulent form of the wheat disease, stem rust,
Catch crop grain are used to keep certain minerals not attached to the soil-clay connection in the soil. Catch crop In agriculture, a catch crop is a fast-growing crop that is grown between successive plantings of a main crop. For example, radishes that mature from seed in 25–30 days can be grown between rows of most vegetables, and harvested long before the main crop matures. Or, a catch crop can be planted between the spring harvest and fall planting of some crops. Catch cropping is a type of succession planting. It makes more efficient use of growing space. Catch crops are also