Root crops are crop plants cultivated for their edible roots, bulbs, or rhizomes. Requiring regular working of the soil to ensure it does not become encrusted or overgrown with weeds, they are a category of hoe crops (German Hackfrüchte, French plantes sarclées). Hoe crops like beets, cabbage, and rape (canola) have been cultivated in gardens to enrich the human diet since Greco-Roman antiquity (Food) [8. 161]. They were also already being planted in fields in regions of high population density, such as the Netherlands, northern France, and the Lower …