Expression: Rice crop needs heat to ripen

[Tom]

Hi

Do you find the following sentence correct and natural? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

1-Rice crop needs heat to ripen.

Tom

PS Rice crop= the crop of rice??? do we agree?

[Yankee]

Hi Tom

You would have to say "A/The rice crop needs..." or "Rice crops need..."

Amy

[Alan]

Hi Tom,

This could also work as it is if you look at it as a definition of rice crop similar to: Apple is a type of fruit.

A
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[Conchita]

That sentence also sounds like a newspaper heading, doesn't it? In true journalistic style, it could then mean something totally different about some kind of extraordinary phenomenon related to a certain Mr Rice's haircut, for example...

[Pond969]

It does sound like a newspaper headline but, ignoring the issue of 'A/The' for the moment... using 'rice crop' as opposed to 'crop of rice' sounds much more general, referring, perhaps, to the entire rice yield from a particular region. The latter expression I would take to mean something much more limited and local.For example: 'the crop of rice from the lower paddies was higher than that from the upper.)

I'd say the two expressions can actually be used interchangeably for all intents and purposes, but it seems to me that there are subtle shades of difference.