In the past, the primary solution for food shortages has been to bring more land into agriculture. While crop productivity has been increased with innovation, the introduction of new varieties, and cultivation technologies, the land utilization rate has decreased.
Even though different soils have some properties that cannot be changed, such as texture, soil quality can be improved by implementing good management strategies, by crop rotation. Soils can be improved for water holding capacity, drainage, structure, and even the ability for plant roots to penetrate through the soil.
Crop rotation is the recurrent succession of crops on the same piece of land either in a year or over a longer period of time. Component crops are chosen so that soil health is not impaired, e.g. cotton- gram, sugarcane- wheat. It means also growing a set of crops in regular succession on a piece of land in a specific period of time, with an object to get maximum profit without impairing soil fertility.
Crop rotation was used in the time of the Romans, the Egyptians, and throughout Asia and Europe well before the Middle Ages. It increased the nutritional value of the food and kept the nitrogen levels of the soil sufficiently high so that chemical fertilizers were not even a consideration.
There are many variants of crop rotation but they all more or less achieve the same thing; reduce the incidence of disease, break pest cycles and avoid nutrient depletion. You can also manage a good crop rotation with AGRIVI farm system. It allows you to clearly see which field is empty and what to sow next depending on previous crops. This enables you to grow 2 or 3 cultures per year on a single field, depending on the plant vegetation period.
A 9-year study on adopted organic growing methods and crop rotation established that herbicide and chemical fertilizer usage can be reduced by 80%. Furthermore, this planting method lowered the freshwater toxicity levels by more than 200 times and kept profits per acre high.
Use crop rotation and track your field utilization with AGRIVI!
