Commercial agriculture may be extensive, intensive or mixed. In extensive commercial agriculture, the main concern is to produce for sale the greatest quantity of crop or food per man.
In intensive commercial agriculture, the emphasis is on the greatest possible output for sale per hectare of land.
In commercial mixed farming (also known as diversified farming) there is no special emphasis on any one crop. A number of crops are raised. It is mixed in the sense that animals are also kept on the farm while raising crops. While rearing either for meat or milk and other dairy products, is an important aspect of agriculture.
One distinct drawback of this form of extensive mechanized farming is the consequent low yield. For example, the average yield of wheat in the Prairies is about 1700 Kg per hectare) whereas in Australian Downs and Pampas, it is even lower, not more the (800 kg/ hectare). In comparison, the wheat yield in countries that practice intensive farming are much higher, at times almost thrice the yield. e.g. U.K. (4500 kg/hectare) Denmark (5310 kg/hectare).
Three quarters of the worlds wheat is winter wheat that is wheat sown in winter or late autumn. It is a hard wheat with a low moisture content. Being ripened in the hot, sunny, continental summer, it is best for bread making and extensively traded. Polewards, where the winter temperatures are too cold for the wheat seedlings to survive, spring wheat is grown. It is the less important, soft wheat more suitable for making cakes, biscuits rather than bread. In North America winter wheat is dominant south of the Great Lakes in U.S.A., while spring wheat is sown mainly in the Canadian Prairie. Scientific plant breeding has now devised cold resistant varieties that can mature within 110 days.
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