Drumsticks are a _____ type vegetable.

✅Explanation:
• Perennial crop (correct answer): Drumsticks come from the Moringa tree, which is a perennial plant. Perennial plants live for more than two years and continue to grow year after year. Drumsticks are harvested from the young, immature seed pods of the Moringa tree.
• Crop Annual: Crop annuals are plants that complete their entire life cycle in one growing season. They are typically planted from seed in the spring, flower, produce fruit or seeds, and then die in the fall. Since drumsticks come from a tree that lives for many years, they are not an annual crop.
• Biennial: Biennials are plants that take two years to complete their life cycle. In the first year, they grow leaves and roots. In the second year, they flower, produce fruit or seeds, and then die. Drumsticks are not biennials because they produce fruits (seed pods) every year after reaching maturity, not just in the second year.

🔑IMP Key Points:

• Based on Ontogeny (Life cycle):

• Annual crops:
• Crop plants that complete the life cycle within a season or year.
• They produce seeds and die within the season.
• Examples: Wheat, rice, maize, mustard.

• Biennial crops:
• Plants that have a life span of two consecutive seasons or years.
• First years/season, these plants have purely vegetative growth usually confined to a rosette of leaves.
• The taproot is often fleshy and serves as a food storage organ.
• During the second year/season, they produce flower stocks from the crown and after producing seeds the plants die.
• Examples: Sugar beet, beetroot.

• Perennial crops:
• They live for three or more years.
• They may be seed-bearing or non-seed bearing.
• Examples: Napier fodder grass, coconut.