# Botany trivia. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2002, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366 "2002-04-02T11:11:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2002, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/21 "2002-04-03T23:49:36Z")
According to a quick search of the stat databases maintained by the world Food and Agriculture Organisation ([www.FAO.org](http://www.FAO.org)) world production of various major fruits was as follows: Oranges: 61,250,249Mt Grapes: 62,585,913Mt Bananas: 66,510,680 Mt Plantains: 28,701,404Mt Tomatoes: 99,428,786Mt So clear winner is tomatoes but if you add together bananas and plantains, they come close. Olives, gooseberries etc don’t even come close. If you go to [http://apps.fao.org/page/form?collection=Production.Crops.Primary&Domain=Production&servlet=1&language=EN&hostname=apps.fao.org&version=default](http://apps.fao.org/page/form?collection=Production.Crops.Primary&Domain=Production&servlet=1&language=EN&hostname=apps.fao.org&version=default), you can go through the figures by seed, area harvested and tonnage. By the way, all of these things pale into comparison with production levels of the major grain crops. However, always a chance that your lecturer is being a smartaleck and the answer is something obscure like rosehips that aren’t really a commercial crop. (My horticulture lecturer used to ask what the world’s biggest horticultural crop was, bet no-one can guess the answer) ---
**Author:** ![tisiphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tisiphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tisiphone)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/22 "2002-04-04T00:28:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Motog \* > \*\* > > However, always a chance that your lecturer is being a smartaleck and the answer is something obscure like rosehips that aren’t really a commercial crop. (My horticulture lecturer used to ask what the world’s biggest horticultural crop was, bet no-one can guess the answer) \*\* Grass? The kind you cover your lawn in? ---
**Author:** ![Motog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85e7bf/32.png) [@Motog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motog)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/23 "2002-04-04T00:53:35Z")
Damn, **tisiphone** , that was obviously too easy. You’re prize is … um… well, your prize is the knowledge that your smarter than me (I guessed bananas). BTW those production figures in the previous post are for 2001 ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/24 "2002-04-04T02:30:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*Since this is a botanist we’re talking about, he/she might haull out a surprise answer for 2) in that things like wheat, rice and lentils are all grown for their _fruit_ (in the obscure botanical sense of the word). \*\* That was my thought as well. The _Encyclopedia Americana_ calls lentils “seeds,” so they might not qualify. But it calls grains “seedlike fruit,” so it seems to be that they would qualify. Among the grains, maize was #1 in 2001. maize 604 million tonnes rice 585 million tonnes wheat 576 million tonnes In five of the last 11 years, maize has been #1. In 1995, 1999, and 2000, rice was #1. In 1992, 1993, and 1997 wheat was #1. The closeness of the top three would seem to be at odds with the teacher’s qualification that one tops “far exceeds” its nearest rival. With that in mind, I went back throught the list at [fao.org](http://fao.org) (click [here](http://apps.fao.org/page/collections?subset=agriculture) then on the first link in the table, which is labeled “crops primary”). I found what I think might be the winner: **oil palm fruit**. The 2001 production was 118 million tonnes, more than tomatoes, grapes, oranges, or bananas. Watermelon also beat grapes and oranges, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/25 "2002-04-04T02:40:56Z")
I forgot to mention that soybeans beat palm oil fruit (177 million tonnes vs. 118), but I don’t think that counts as fruit, does it? What exactly is the fruit of the soybean plant, botanically speaking? I would guess the pod (including the beans inside), but IANABotanist. ---
**Author:** ![Essured](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Essured](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Essured)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/26 "2002-04-04T07:43:04Z")
I had to hand in the quiz today, which I did, and because I didn’t know the answer to that last question, I quickly asked my lecturer if rice was considered a fruit. Since we disected a wheat floret yesterday, and that was a grain, but botanically also a fruit, I was thinking perhaps the answer was rice. Anyway, he said that rice could be looked at as a grain, like wheat. From that, I figured I’d take a guess at rice, and handed it in. By the looks of **Bib’s** post, I might have been better off asking about maize… oh well. I’ll post the answer here when I get the results, since you guys seemed interested. ---
**Author:** ![Essured](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Essured](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Essured)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/27 "2002-04-06T04:04:00Z")
YAY ! I won the quiz ! Out of over 100 people, too 🙂 O.K, I got the pumpkin, grapes and raspberry question only partly right. I was correct in that they are all monoecious, but the answer they wanted was that they were all berries, so apparently raspberry is a berry. I know that strawberry is not, so perhaps that was what the person who said they weren’t berries was thinking of ? Oh, and “rice” was the correct answer to the question about the most produced fruit. A rice grain is botanically speaking a fruit, so there you go. And the ancient greek.roman one was definitely basil. I’m so stoked that I won ! I got a nice bottle of wine to celebrate my win with 🙂 I can post the rest of the questions if people would like to have a go at the whole quiz. I got almost all the answers from a quick google search, anyway and didn’t really use any botany knowledge. If you guys are interested, I’ll start a thread in MPSIMS, or IMHO (I’ll have to think about which it’s more suited for). So for those who expressed interest in knowing the final answers, there they are. 🙂 Thanks for your help, guys. ---
**Author:** ![AbbySthrnAccent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@AbbySthrnAccent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AbbySthrnAccent)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/28 "2002-04-06T05:11:33Z")
Congrats **Goo**. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366/29 "2002-04-06T14:30:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Goo \* > \*\* > O.K, I got the pumpkin, grapes and raspberry question only partly right. I was correct in that they are all monoecious, but the answer they wanted was that they were all berries, so apparently raspberry is a berry. I know that strawberry is not, so perhaps that was what the person who said they weren’t berries was thinking of ? > \*\* Please inform your teacher what **Honey** stated in this thread: a raspberry is **a cluster of drupelets**. From [http://www.calflora.net/botanicalnames/botanicalterms.html](http://www.calflora.net/botanicalnames/botanicalterms.html) > [@](#): > > Drupe: a fleshy indehiscent fruit enclosing a nut or hard stone containing generally a single seed such as a peach or cherry > > Berry: a fleshy, indehiscent fruit in which the seeds are not encased in a stone and are typically more than one [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/botany-trivia/101366.md?page=1)