Question

What do you understand by ‘crop rotation’? Giving a suitable example, explain how this practice is beneficial to the farmers.

Answer 1

Hint: It is a practice adopted in agriculture to restore and maintain the nutrient availability in the soil and increase the yield because different crops consume different types of nutrients from the soil.

Complete answer:
When a single type of crop is planted in the same field for many successive growing seasons, the nutrient configuration of the soil in that field slowly deteriorates because the same type of nutrients is getting used by the growing crop again and again. This causes a reduction in soil fertility for that particular crop and their yield is decreased. To maintain soil fertility, the practice of crop rotation is adapted in which different types of crops are sequentially planted in the same field. This practice optimizes the nutrient content of that soil and also combats pests and weeds pressure on the soil.
As an example, suppose a farmer has planted corn in a field. The corn has been found to consume a lot of nitrogen from the soil. If the farmer plants corn in that field every year, the nitrogen will be continuously withdrawn by the corn from the soil and the soil might be devoid of nitrogen or will have a very low content of it. As a result of this reduction in nitrogen content, the fertility of the soil will decrease successively for that particular corn. To overcome this problem, when the harvesting of corn is finished, the farmers plant leguminous plants like beans in the same field. Beans have nodules in their root where nitrogen-fixing bacteria live. They help in fixing atmospheric nitrogen to the soil and thus the reduced nitrogen content of the soil is restored to the appropriate amount. Again, if the corn is grown in that field, the yield will not be affected as the corn will get enough nitrogen from the soil.

Note:
The common crops that alternatively rotated are –
- Maize and Mustard are rotated in single year crop rotation practices.
- Rice and Wheat are also rotated in single year crop rotation practices.
- Cotton, Oat, Sugarcane, Peas, Maize, and Wheat are alternatively rotated in a three-year crop rotation plan.