" TropCrop really is 'must-have' software if you need to be savvy quickly - for whatever reason - on cultivated plants in hot countries."

" On missions to rural areas in the tropics, TropCrop on my laptop comes in very handy: great for reference, and - with all those photos - great as a communication tool. No internet connection needed."

For information on obtaining a user licence for TropCrop, please contact us (see contact info below).

Crops featuring in TropCrop (incl. photo samples)

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More about the TropCrop courseware

Main learning goals: recognising the 100 most important (sub-)tropical crops in the field and their harvest products on the market, and knowing what these crops and products are used for.
How to use it: TropCrop is targeted for self-study as well as for use in tutored classes.
Level: tertiary education (tutoring probably needed for use in secondary education).


  TropCrop has been developed, and is constantly updated and expanded in cooperation with the Department of Plant Sciences of  Wageningen University, Netherlands.

Main components
The latest edition of TropCrop is version 2.33 (01aug2011) (see Version history for differences with previous versions). Currently, TropCrop consists of the modules

• CropTutor
  'Getting to know 100 important (sub-)tropical crops in 11 commodity groups', courseware aiming at recognizing 100 of the most important crops grown in the (sub-)tropics from field characteristics (morphology, ecology, cultivation practices), and knowing what these crops are used for.
  
• TC-Pedia
  'MultiMedia Encyclopedia on 250 (sub-)Tropical Crops', a reference database and image bank of the most important crops grown in the (sub-)tropics, with more than 3300 photographs and [to date] 14 video clips.
  
• CropQuizzz
  'A quiz to test your ability to recognize 100 crops grown in the tropics and/or subtropics', an exercise tool for recognizing crop plants from photos proven to be very popular with students.
  
• SeedQuizzz
  'A quiz to test your ability to recognise 77 seeds and other traded small parts of (sub-)tropical crops', a tough drag-and-drop-the-right-label game.
  
• CropPix
  'A picture gallery on [to date] 340 crops grown in the tropics and/or subtropics', a selection of the most beautiful pictures from our slide archives and from tropical agriculturalists' private collections.
  
• TropicOrn
  'A picture gallery on [to date] 55 ornamental crops grown in the tropics and/or subtropics', an expanding collection of slides on apparently popular non-woody plants, shrubs and trees you keep running into in gardens, parks and urban settings everywhere in the (sub)tropics.

Navigation
The self-contained modules of TropCrop are directly accessible via the XS2ALL programme-overview-annex-control-panel screen.

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TropCrop is not made available on-line. The TropCrop programme is delivered on CD-ROM/DVD and runs under Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7. The web pages following this introduction are 1/4-size sample screen shots to give you an impression of the programme. Some of the buttons in the screen shots function as in the real thing: try them out!
For information on user licences for TropCrop, see the contact info below.

Author
TropCrop is created by Rik Schuiling, agricultural botanist, tropical agronomist, and courseware developer who honed his skills at the Department of Plant Sciences, Wageningen University. His love for the natural beauty of the tropics, for traveling and for photography, in combination with his language skills and his eye for detail, not to mention his training and experience in agricultural science, has resulted in a truly special piece of educational software in which his enthusiasms clearly transpire: courseware that will inspire you and your students!

History
In 1993, the Department of Plant Sciences' former Tropical Crop Science section, at instigation of its professor Louise FRESCO, started to look into the possibilities of Computer-Aided Education for the lab 'Introductory Course in Tropical Crops'. This resulted in the TropCrop software.

Partnerships
Parts of TropCrop's development have been joint projects with
- XOTUS Exotic Plants Centre, Delft, Netherlands (1994-jun1995), and
- the Institute of Agronomy and Animal Production in the Tropics and Subtropics at the University of Goettingen, Germany (1996-1997).
Most of the textual information and the botanical drawings in TropCrop are taken by permission from the excellent handbooks and websites of PROSEA (Plant Resources of South-East Asia) and PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) (1994-present). 

Authoring software used
TropCrop has been constructed and is constantly updated using the superior authoring system IconAuthor 7.6.

Contact:
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| TropCrop - Tropical Crops Services   * email: info@tropcrop.nl   |
| Wageningen, Netherlands              *                           |
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  TropCrop - courseware is one of the products of

TropCrop - Tropical Crops Services

which also offers
  TropCrop - fact finding, short field and desk studies on (sub-)tropical crops carried out for you, if need be on very short notice.
  TropCrop - stock photography, pictures of (sub-)tropical crops at a price you cannot go and take them yourself for.
  TropCrop - guest lecturing using the TropCrop courseware and (optionally) the portable TropCrop exhibition.