Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Planning an effective rotation requires weighing fixed and fluctuating production circumstances: market, farm size, labor supply, climate, soil type, growing practices, etc. [16] Moreover, a crop rotation must consider in what condition one crop will leave the soil for the succeeding crop and how one crop can be seeded with another crop. [16]
The three-field system lets farmers plant more crops and therefore increase production. Under this system, the arable land of an estate or village was divided into three large fields : one was planted in the autumn with winter wheat or rye ; the second field was planted with other crops such as peas , lentils , or beans ; and the third was left ...
The Dutch four-field rotation system was popularised by the British agriculturist Charles Townshend in the 18th century. The system (wheat, turnips, barley and clover) opened up a fodder crop and grazing crop allowing livestock to be bred year-round. The use of clover was especially important as the legume roots replenished soil nitrates. [169]
The Old Rotation experiment, which started in 1896, is the third-oldest ongoing field crop experiment in the United States and the oldest continuous cotton experiment in the world. It was the first experiment to show that a cotton/ legume crop rotation would allow soil to support a cotton crop indefinitely.
Later they employed a three-year, three field crop rotation routine, with a different crop in each of two fields, e.g. oats, rye, wheat, and barley with the second field growing a legume like peas or beans, and the third field fallow. Normally from 10% to 30% of the arable land in a three crop rotation system is fallow. Each field was rotated ...
The Norfolk four-course system is a method of agriculture that involves crop rotation. Unlike earlier methods such as the three-field system, the Norfolk system is marked by an absence of a fallow year. Instead, four different crops are grown in each year of a four-year cycle: wheat, turnips, barley, and clover or ryegrass. [1]
On several manors in Sussex England, for example, the average yield for the years 1350–1399 was 4.34 seeds produced for each seed sown for wheat, 4.01 for barley, and 2.87 for oats. [53] (By contrast, wheat production in the 21st century can total 30 to 40 seeds harvested for each seed sown.)
Crop rotation has been employed for thousands of years and has been widely found to increase yield and prevent harmful changes to the soil environment that limit productivity in the long term. [3] Although the specific mechanisms regulating that effect are not fully understood, [ 4 ] they are thought to be related to differential effects on ...