Click on the following crops for a detailed description.

Lots of different crops are grown on the farm but the crop that covers the greatest area of the UK is grass. As well as the green grass you expect to see in a field or in the garden plants such as wheat, barley and oats are also types of grass.

Grass like plants are among the most versatile life forms. Plants having grass-like structures have existed for millions of years, providing fodder for dinosaurs, whose fossilised dung contains grasses that include the ancestors of rice and bamboo. Grasses have adapted to conditions in lush rain forests, dry deserts, and cold mountain steppes, and are now the most widespread plant type.

Plants of this type were always important to humans. They were cultivated as food for domesticated animals for up to 10,000 years. They have been used for paper-making since at least 2400 BC. Now they provide the majority of food crops, and have many other uses, such as feeding animals, and for lawns. There are many minor uses, and grasses are familiar to most human cultures.

Many types of animals eat grass as their main source of food. These animals are usually called "herbivores", although certain herbivores are more inclined to eat leafy plants, and some omnivorous or even primarily carnivorous animals have been observed eating grass on occasion. Some of the most familiar grass eaters include cows, sheep, horses and rabbits.

Grass is used to feed livestock either fresh with the animals eating in the field or preserved as silage or hay. Both silage and hay is harvested when there is a flush of growth in the spring and early summer and there is too much grass for the stock to eat. The grass is harvested and either ensiled as a moist feed – silage, or dried and stored undercover as a dry feed – hay. Both provide nutritious feeds for the following winter for all kinds of farm livestock.