Fallow
Videos
Fallow is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store organic matter while retain
A ploughed field left unsown
Crop rotation
Videos
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. This practice reduces the reliance of crops on one set of nutrients
Fallow
…recover and store organic matter while retaining moisture and disrupting pest life cycles and soil-borne pathogens by temporarily removing their hosts. Crop rotation systems typically called for some of a farmer's fields to be left fallow each year. The increase in intensive farming, including the use of cover crops…
Effects of crop rotation and monoculture at the Swojec Experimental Farm, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. In the front field, the "Norfolk" crop rotation sequence (potatoes, oats, peas, rye) is being applied; in the back field, rye has been grown for 58 years in a row.
Legumes such as alfalfa, beans, and clover have long been used in crop rotations. They have bacteria in their root nodules which take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil as nitrates that crops can use.
Maler der Grabkammer des Sennudem 001