Meaning and Classification
Specialty vegetables
What are Specialty Vegetables?
Specialty vegetables are a general term for niche vegetables with characteristics, novelty or non-local conventional cultivation compared to tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, cabbage and other road vegetables, which have the characteristics of scarcity, novelty, regionality and functionality.
Specialty vegetables are a concept that encompasses a wide range of concepts that change over time and with market demand, and can be broadly divided into the following categories:
1 type introduced from abroad
Such as bell peppers, fruit cucumbers, celery, fruit bell peppers, bulb fennel, kale, okra, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, artichokes, etc.;
2
Domestic exchange between places, vegetable varieties that are not native to the region
For example, the purple back cabbage, Panax notoginseng, winter cold cabbage, sunflower, four-sided bean, and yang lotus native to the south of the mainland are introduced in the northern region;
3. Newly cultivated vegetables with novelty, ornamental or high nutritional value
Such as color leaf beets, purple lettuce, dwarf tomatoes, dwarf ornamental peppers, broccoli, purple blue, etc.;
4. Special planting methods
Such as softened cultivation of celery, sprout ball chicory, seedling tray cultivation of sprouts, etc.;
5
Domesticated wild vegetables
Such as bracken, maran, camellia, purslane, dandelion, etc.;
6. Aromatic vegetables
It is a class of vegetables that contain strong aromas and can be used in cooking to increase the flavor of food, such as perilla, mint, basil, parsley, dill, rosemary, oregano, borage, spearmint, lemongrass, etc.
Author: Guo Fang, Beijing Agricultural Technology Extension Station
Editor: Nong Xiaohua