Grasses question  David Starrett starrett at Mon Dec 4 12:35:16
EST 2000  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  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 (