| Crop rotation is a farming practice which utilizes the different requirements and benefits of different plants so that soil fertility is improved, erosion is controlled, and pest and diseases are decreased.
This farming method uses the practice of planting different plant varieties in a location in subsequent growing seasons to do obtain the following benefits:
- Increased yields. Because one plant will require different nutrients and support different destructive organisms, by planting a different crop in subsequent seasons, the nutrients taken from the soil can be replaced and the destructive organisms can be reduced. An example is planting corn and beans in rotation. Corn requires a lot of nitrogen to offer a good yield, and has specific pests and diseases, like corn earworms, corn blight, among others. By planting beans in rotation, the legume (beans), fix additional nitrogen in the soil, and during the bean growing season, corn pests and diseases have no plants to reproduce or replenish themselves in, so they die off or decrease.
- Soil erosion prevention. Row crops (plants placed in rows spaced apart, with bare soil "middles" or areas between the rows) allow more erosion than crops usually planted by "broadcast" methods, or in a close-spaced "drill". By rotating a broadcast or close spaced seed crop like grains, the erosion problem does not occur continuously, and the straw and waste from the grain crop acts to stabilize the soil when the land is tilled between crops.
- Reduction of pesticide usage. By reducing pest populations in a specific plot of ground or field by eliminating plants they depend on for continuing their life cycle, you can reduce the overall population of these pests that occur during the season you grow these plants. Having a reduced population will then reduce your dependency on pesticides to control them. NV Ranch uses no pesticides in the growing of our crops.
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