Question

What is the advantage of crop rotation?
(a) Getting different kinds of crops
(b) Increasing the quality of minerals
(c) Increasing the fertility of the soil
(d) Increasing the quality of proteins

Answer 1

Hint: Different species of plants have different nutritional requirements, these nutritional requirements are fulfilled by the soil. When the same crop is grown over and over, the soil is depleted of specific nutrients, this causes depletion of soil health.

Complete answer:
Crop rotation is a farming technique used by farmers for centuries. It is the planting of different plants in different parts of the field at different seasons in a systematic sequential manner, sometimes it also includes not planting anything for a season to give the land relief time and allow it to regenerate.

Advantages of crop rotation are:
1. It increases soil fertility, planting the same types of the crop over an extended period of time causes depletion of nutrients in the soil. Each type of crop has a different nutrition requirement, they absorb and release different types of nutrients in the soil, thus by rotation crops excess and depleted nutrients are replenished.
2. The organic material in the soil is also increased because of the microorganisms left behind by each plant, this increases the available biomass on the soil thus enriching it.
3. Crop yield is increased when crop rotation is practiced. The availability of nutrients in the soil due to the presence of different types of plants is an important contributing factor that helps to increase the yield.
4. It increases the fertility of the land over a period of time.
5. Reduction in soil erosion is also seen in farms that practice crop rotation. A layer of crops that crawl like beans and peas work very well to prevent soil erosion, unlike maize which stands up erect and leaves the land exposed to elements.
6. Pests and diseases are also reduced since pests and diseases are crop-specific. Once the type of crop changes the same disease cannot affect a different plant thus saving the next plantation.

So, the correct answer is, ‘increasing the fertility of the soil’

Note: A huge variety of changes are visible in the soil type after farmers start practicing crop rotation. Soil health drastically improves when legumes are planted due to the nitrogen-fixing property.