Identify the odd crop. Maize, Sugarcane, Cotton, Barley

Correct — C.
Rule: three are grown for food, one mainly for fibre.

Maize and barley are cereals, grown for their grain.
Sugarcane is grown for the sugar in its stem.
Cotton is grown for the fibre around its seeds, spun into yarn for cloth.

The fibre crop is the odd one → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Maize — Maize is a cereal grown for its grain, like barley. Removing it would leave cotton, a fibre crop, among the food crops.
• (b)
  Sugarcane — Sugarcane is not a cereal, but it is grown for sugar, so it is still a food crop. Botanically it is a grass, like maize and barley.
• (d)
  Barley — Barley is a cereal grown for its grain, in the same group as maize. It belongs with the food crops, so it cannot be the odd one.

Crop classification sorts by what the crop is grown for. Maize and barley are cereals, grown for grain. Sugarcane is grown for the sugar in its stem. All three end up as food.

Cotton is grown for the soft fibre around its seeds, which is spun into yarn and woven into cloth. That makes it a fibre crop, the odd one in this list.

Key facts

• Cotton is a fibre crop: the fibre around its seeds is spun into yarn.
• Maize and barley are cereals, grown for their grain.
• Maize, sugarcane and barley are all members of the grass family, Poaceae.
• Cotton belongs to the genus Gossypium in the mallow family, Malvaceae.

Common traps

• Picking sugarcane because it is not a cereal, though it is still grown for food
• Picking barley as the one rabi crop: sugarcane takes about a year to grow, so season does not split these four three to one

No directly related past PYQ was found.