Question

Standing crop is
A) All photosynthetic living forms of an area
B) All crop plants in an area
C) Dried biomass of all living organisms in the given environment
D) None of the above

Answer 1

Hint: The standing crop is a growing crop especially for cereals. The standing crop is the total ground plant biomass on the site at a particular time. Standing crops at a site changes within or among years. It depends on seasonal conditions and also effectively used by grazing animals.

Complete answer:
Standing crop is a whole or entire dried biomass of all living organisms in a particular environment. It is the entire amount of dry biomass that exists in an ecosystem. It means the amount of past-ground plant biomass.
A) All photosynthetic living forms of an area are not termed as standing crops. The photosynthetic living forms include all the members of plant Kingdom as well as some green or blue green algae. They can be termed as producers, because they can synthesize their own food through the process of photosynthesis. So, this option is wrong.
 B) Standing crop does not mean the total number of crop plants present in a particular area. There is no term used for this. However, the number of plants present in a particular region is known as plant density of that area. Hence, this option is wrong.
C) Dried biomass of all living organisms in the given environment is denoted by a term standing crop. The total number of every kind of living organism inhabiting an ecosystem is usually known as standing crop. It indicates the dried mass of the plants, animals, microorganism, and other biotic components present in the ecosystem. So, this option is correct.
D) This option is also wrong because ‘C’ is the correct option. Standing crop means the total dried biomass of all living organisms in the environment.

Thus, the correct answer is C.

Note: The two terms which broadly classify the ecosystem into biotic and abiotic factors are standing crop and standing state respectively. The standing state is the number of inorganic nutrients innovated in an ecosystem. It constitutes the part of non-living matter. It is being regularly reduced and refilled by the living matters. The standing crop is an aggregate of biomass that is living organisms which exist in an ecosystem.