Talk:Crop rotation

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Assessment comments The following comments were left by the assessors: (edit · refresh) I have assessed this article as Start-class and identified the following areas for improvement: The article needs to be written in an enyclopedic tone The article needs inline citations The article needs references Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:59, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The following are the bits not covered (and some not deserving of coverage) by my rewrite:

It is the greatest possible mistake to think that the temporary diminution of fertility in a field is chiefly owing to the loss of the decaying vegetable matter it previously contained: it is principally the consequence of the exhaustion of potash and soda, which are restored by the slow process of the more complete disintegration of the materials of the soil. It is evident that the careful tilling of fallow land must accelerate and increase this further breaking up of its mineral ingredients. Nor is this repose of the soil always necessary.

Because plants require for their growth different constituents of soil, changing the crop from year to year will maintain the fertility of that soil (provided it be done with judgment) quite as well as leaving it at rest or fallow. In this we but imitate nature. The oak, after thriving for long generations on a particular spot, gradually sickens; its entire race dies out; other trees and shrubs succeed it, till, at length, the surface becomes so charged with an excess of dead vegetable matter, that the forest becomes a peat moss, or a surface upon which no large tree will grow. Generally long before this can occur, the operation of natural causes has gradually removed from the soil substances, essential to the growth of oak leaving others favorable and necessary to the growth of beech or pine. So, in practical farming, one crop, in artificial rotation with others, extracts from the soil a certain quantity of necessary materials; a second carries off, in preference, those which the former has left.

One hundred parts of wheat straw yield 15 1/2 of ashes; the same quantity of barley straw, 8 1/2; of oat straw, only 4; and the ashes of the three are chemically, of about the same composition. Upon the same field, which will yield only one harvest of wheat, two successive crops of barley may be raised, and three of oats. We have in these facts a clear proof of what is abstracted from the soil and the key to the rational mode of supplying the deficiency.

A field, which has become unfitted for a certain kind of produce, may not, on that account, be unsuitable for another; and upon this observation a system of agriculture has been gradually formed, the principal object of which is to obtain the greatest possible produce in a succession of years, with the least outlay for manure.

because, during the interval, the soil will have been, by the action of the atmosphere, and the solution of vegetable and animal substances decaying upon or in it, again rendered capable of yielding what the wheat requires. Whether this process can be artificially anticipated, by supplying the exhausted ingredient to the soil, is a further and most interesting and important inquiry.

We could keep our fields in a constant state of fertility by replacing, every year, as much as is removed from them by their produce. An increase of fertility may be expected, of course, only when more is added of the proper material to the soil than is taken away. Any soil will partially regain its strength by lying fallow. But any soil, under cultivation, must at length (without help) lose those constituents which are removed in the seeds, roots and leaves of the plants raised upon it. To remedy this loss, and also increase the productiveness of the land, is the object of the use of proper manures.

Land, when not employed in raising food for animals or man, should, at least, be applied to the purpose of raising manure for itself; and this, to a certain extent, may be effected by means of green crops, which, by their decomposition, not only add to the amount of vegetable mould contained in the soil, but supply the alkalies that would be found in their ashes. That the soil should become richer by this burial of a crop, than it was before the seed of that crop was sown, will be understood by recollecting that three-fourths of the whole organic matter we bury has been derived from the air: that by this process of ploughing in, the vegetable matter is more equally diffused through the whole soil, and therefore more easily and rapidly decomposed; and that by its gradual decomposition, ammonia and nitric acid are certainty generated, though not so largely as when animal matters are employed. He who neglects the green sods, and crops of weeds that flourish by his hedgerows and ditches, overlooks an important natural means of wealth. Left to themselves, they ripen their seeds, exhausting the soil, and sowing them annually in his fields: collected in compost heaps, they add materially to his yearly crops of corn.

[edit] Irrellevant passage (as currently written) moved to talk

This section moved from page. It is simply continuous cropping without reference to the principles of crop rotation: Crop rotation is widely practiced in vegetable production, where it is possible to grow a cool-season crop (such as lettuce) in the spring, follow with a warm-season crop (such as tomatoes) in the summer, and then grow a winter crop (such as mache) harvested in early spring.

Crop rotation is less common with field crops because the timing is difficult to manage, particularly since most crop-growing regions experience a good deal of rainfall during the late spring and early summer season, which interrupts fieldwork. Pollinator 07:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Some dutch translation.

te laat = to late I think it either has to do with the seasons or not being on time with planting/seeding the new crops after harvest.

onkruid = weeds

brouwgerst = barley with the intention of using it for brewing beer. As opposed to regular barley. brouwen = brewing

koolzaad = rapeseed (looked on the English companion to the Dutch page on koolzaad). It can be used for biodiesel (alternative fuel). My father sowed it once in the nineties, I believe there was also some European subsidies involved, but he did not harvest it. He used it as nutrition for the soil.

JulesVanLaar 02:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

If I knew anything about farming, I wouldn't be reading the wiki page on it ;) But I confirmed and made all the corrections. Some of the original plants were a little over specific (eg brewer's barley, tribe broad beans), so I simplified those. Thanks Jules, and if someone could explain what I meant by "late" (once that's decided), that'd be nice.

Bagsc 26 July 2007 Nathan rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.37.41 (talk) 19:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

it is a crime