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[3] The three-field system needed more plowing of land and its introduction coincided with the adoption of the moldboard plow. These parallel developments complemented each other and increased agricultural productivity. The legume crop needed summer rain to succeed, and so the three-field system was less successful around the Mediterranean.
The “Crop Rotation Practice Standard” for the National Organic Program under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, section §205.205, states that Farmers are required to implement a crop rotation that maintains or builds soil organic matter, works to control pests, manages and conserves nutrients, and protects against erosion.
Many modern farms are made up of a number of fields, which can be cultivated separately and thus can be used in a crop rotation sequence. 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]
The process will spare you from having to use harsh pesticides around plants that will ultimately produce food.
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 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]
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.
But to Jethro Tull, is indisputably due the honour of having first demonstrated the importance of frequent hoeing, not merely to extirpate weeds, but for the purpose of pulverizing the soil, by which process the gases and moisture of the atmosphere are enabled more freely to penetrate to the roots of the crop." [14]