Based on the context, pollinate means to transfer pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part of a flower, enabling fertilization and the production of seeds.
adapted from United States Botanic Garden
What is agrobiodiversity?
Agrobiodiversity refers to agriculture and biodiversity. Agrobiodiversity includes all the different kinds of plants and animals that people raise for food. It also includes living things in the soil that break down and recycle soil nutrients, as well as bees and other insects that pollinate crops.
How people create agrobiodiversity
Over the past 10,000 years, people have created countless varieties of crops and livestock breeds. Each growing season, farmers saved seeds or took cuttings from the plants that grew well in local soils and weather conditions, or that were best able to resist diseases and insect pests. Over time, they developed varieties that produced food under varying environmental conditions. Farmers also alter soils and other parts of the landscape, and this in turn affects biodiversity. The knowledge traditional farmers have about crop varieties is astonishing. In India, for example, people grow, harvest, and cook over 100 varieties of rice!
The history of agrobiodiversity
When people first moved to different parts of the world, they took their seeds and farm animals with them. Farmers bred new varieties of crops and livestock that suited the new growing conditions. As people selected crop plants and livestock for different traits, they created new varieties. Consider wild cabbage for example, which is the ancestor of many different food plants. People bred wild cabbage for different plant parts, such as brussels sprouts, which come from lateral buds on wild cabbage; or collards, from wild cabbage leaves; cauliflower, which comes from the flowers of wild cabbage; as well as many others, including broccoli and kohlrabi, which come from wild cabbage stems.
Genes, together with the environment, determine the traits of all living things. Add human ingenuity and experimentation, and you get the diversity of vegetables, fruits, grains, and meats we eat today!
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Read the following from the passage. Then, complete the sentence with the best definition for pollinate.
Agrobiodiversity refers to agriculture and biodiversity. Agrobiodiversity includes all the different kinds of plants and animals that people raise for food. It also includes living things in the soil that break down and recycle soil nutrients, as well as bees and other insects that pollinate crops.
Based on the context, pollinate means
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