Crop rotation
Crop rotations:-
Introducvtion:-
> Crop rotation is the practice of growing a variety of crops in the same area over a number of growing seasons.
> It reduces reliance on a single set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the likelihood of developing resistant pests and weeds.
> It is the process of producing a variety of crops in the same place over the course of several growing seasons.
Criteria for Selection of Crops for Rotation:-
> There should be enough moisture.
> Fertilizer, labour, and machine power are all available.
> Marketing and processing facilities.
> Nutrient availability in the soil.
> The crop's duration—short or long.
Principles of Crop Rotation:-
> Due to fact that legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil and add organic matter to the soil, they should be planted before non-leguminous crops.
> Crops with tap roots (deep rooted crops like cotton) should be followed by crops with fibrous roots (shallow rooted crops like sorghum or maize). This allows for the proper and uniform use of soil nutrients.
> More exhaustive crops should be followed by less exhaustive crops because crops such as potato, sugarcane, maize, and others require more inputs such as better tillage, more fertilisers, more irrigation, and so on.
Types of Crop Rotation:-
1. One-year Rotation:-
> Crop rotation can be carried out for one year, depending on the size of the available plot of land.
> Following harvest, the soil that is suitable for another specific crop will be planted with that crop for the remaining half of the year.
> One crop would be planted during the first half of the year.
> The planting of maize and then mustard is an example of a one-year crop rotation.
> Another example is the planting of wheat first, then rice.
2. Two Years Rotation:-
> The two-year rotation is essentially identical to the one-year rotation, with the exception that more crop options are available and the crop planting rotation would last for two years instead of one.
> Within the course of a two-year crop rotation, there may be a total of two, three, or four crops planted.
> After the prior crop is harvested, the subsequent crops should have all of the nutrients they need.
> A two-year rotation might involve planting successive crops of corn, mustard, sugarcane, and fenugreek as well as subsequent crops of corn, potatoes, sugarcane, and peas.
3. Three Years Rotation:-
> A three-year rotation, as the name suggests, calls for a number of crops to be planted over the course of three years while addressing all of their nutrient needs.
> On the same piece of land, the crops will be planted one after the other in succession.
> The subsequent crop's nutritional needs will be satisfied by the previously planted crops.
> Some examples of three-year crop rotations include:
i. Rice, wheat, mung, and mustard in succession.
ii. Sugarcane and berseem in succession.
iii. Cotton, oat, sugarcane, peas, maize, and wheat in succession.
Advantages of Crop Rotation:-
i. Improves Soil Condition:- Utilizing various crops, especially those with fibrous or tap roots, can improve the soil's chemical, biological, and physical composition. This increases the amount of organic matter and nutrients in the soil as well as its ability to store water.
ii. Improves Soil Structure:- Rotation helps to preserve and improve soil structure. Crops have various root structures and grow to different depths. Rotating exposes the soil not only to shallow depth crops, but also to deep diggers, which gradually deepen the topsoil.
iii. Reduces Soil Erosion and Water Runoff:- Crop rotation can reduce erosion by enhancing the microbial populations and soil tilth. Surface runoff is reduced as a result of the more stable soil structure created.
iv. Reduces Pests and Weeds:- Pests, plants, and insects can't live without their host for very long. Those pests have no chance if you move your crops around and improve the soil structure at the same time.
v. Control of Insects:- Insects tend to enter your plants' leaves and vines as they prepare to reawaken in the spring in search of their favourite meal. When you rotate, these insects come into contact with a plant that they do not feed on.
vi. Disease Prevention:- Plant diseases can over winter enter in plant leaves, roots, and vines beneath your soil. Crop rotation helps to keep these diseases from returning the following year.
vii. Improvement in Water Quality:- Water quality can be improved by reducing sediment loss, as well as dissolved and sediment-attached nutrient and pesticide losses.
viii. Provides Diversification:- Some crops demand less labor and equipment than others. This implies that the workload can be distributed throughout the year. Additionally, it increases the range of the products that can be sold, preventing from having to "place all your eggs in one basket."
ix. Nutrient Uptake Regulation:- As various crops require different nutrients in different quantities, crop rotation aids in boosting the nutrient uptake by plants from the soil. Crop rotation helps the various crops that are planted within the rotation make the most of all the nutrients in the soil, including the nutrients left over from the previous crop that was planted.
Disadvantages of Crop Rotation:-
i. Involves Risk:- Crop rotation requires a significant financial investment each season to purchase various seedlings of the various crops that will be grown.
> Moreover, particular crops demand specific sorts of equipment, thus farmers may have to invest in different types of machinery.
> This implies that the upfront fees can be higher. However, the success of each crop kind is not assured, and one may wind up losing a harvest.
ii. Requires More Skill & Knowledge:- Crop rotation calls for a broader range of abilities and information regarding each type of crop collected because it involves a variety of crops.
> It also calls for various machinery, the operation of which also takes skill. This implies that learning and perfecting this agricultural method will require more time and effort on the part of farmers.
iii. Difference in Growing Conditions:- For monoculture, or a particular type of crop, some places and their temperatures are better suited.
> The specific type of temperature and soil conditions cannot support the growth of any other crops than that particular type of crop.
iv. Obligatory Crop Diversification:- It is mandatory to plant different crops each time for crop rotation to be effective. However, it prevents a farmer from specializing in a particular crop.