How To Organize The Correct Crop Rotation On The Site

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The complexity of agricultural technology in a garden plot lies in the limited area and an extremely wide range of crops. In order to create optimal growing conditions for each plant, it is necessary to strictly observe the change of crops and varieties from the first year of the development of the site.

This allows you to avoid the so-called fatigue of the soil, the accumulation of specific pests and pathogens, weeds, imbalance in nutrients, aging and a decrease in the productivity of the plants themselves.

With rare exceptions, the general rule is as follows: you cannot plant the same crop several times in a row on the same plot.

For example, after uprooting currants, you cannot immediately plant currants on this place.

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This or that culture can be returned to its original place only after 2-4 years, while using the soil for other plants that will help restore its fertility. The set of these plants is very diverse, but there are some limitations.

It is impossible to use crops that are closely related on economic grounds as predecessors: plant cherries after plums and vice versa, currants after gooseberries and vice versa, strawberries after strawberries and vice versa, strawberries after raspberries and vice versa.

In vegetable crops, it is impossible to sow or plant plants of the same family from year to year in a row. Cruciferous: cabbage, rutabaga, radish, turnip, horseradish, radish, mustard. The nightshade family: tomato, pepper, eggplant, potatoes. Pumpkin: cucumber, zucchini, squash, watermelon, melon, pumpkin, etc. This leads to the accumulation of diseases and pests typical for this family.

It is not recommended to plant fruit and berry plants immediately after those breeds that are capable of forming offspring: cherries and plums, sea buckthorn and raspberries. After the berry bushes, it is better not to plant anything at all - many different weeds accumulate in the soil over a long period of cultivation. After uprooting, it is useful to keep the soil under "black steam" for a year: to systematically loosen the surface, destroying weeds.

It is undesirable to use plants propagating by tubers, bulbs, rhizomes (tulips, stachis, horseradish, etc.) as predecessors for perennial plantings. even with careful harvesting, some of the plants still remain and clog it.

The best precursors-soil improvers include: mixtures of leguminous-cereal grasses, green manure (for plowing) crops: mustard, phacelia, lupine, sweet clover; legumes: peas, beans; root vegetables: carrots, radishes, turnips, turnips, radishes, beets; pumpkin seeds: cucumber, pumpkin, squash, squash, as well as onions, garlic, dill, caraway seeds, potatoes.

But before raspberries and strawberries, you cannot grow tomato and potatoes, which have common soil diseases with them.

Vegetable crops have different ability to assimilate nutrients from the soil. Continuous cultivation of any of them in one place depletes the soil. It is also necessary to take into account the nature of the placement of the root system in various crops: for example, cabbage, carrots and beets are able to absorb phosphorus and potassium from the lower layers of the soil, and onions, cucumbers, lettuce, dill - from the upper ones.

Changing vegetables on the site is effective in controlling weeds. Plants with a well-developed, fast-growing leaf surface - cabbage, potatoes, beans, zucchini, etc.), placed at large aisles, have the ability to suppress weeds.

Conversely, crops that slowly develop a small rosette of leaves - carrots, beets, greens - are not able to withstand them.

Consequently, the alternation of these cultures makes it possible to create favorable conditions for their growth and development.

The crop rotation scheme should be designed taking into account the effect on them of organic fertilizers. If cabbage, potatoes, cucumber require the mandatory introduction of fresh organic fertilizer for their growth, then crops such as carrots, tomatoes, onions are best grown in the second year after application. In carrots, on fresh manure fertilizer, the root tip dies off and it begins to branch; onion growth is too delayed, and the onion does not have time to ripen; the tomato grows intensively, and it sets fruits poorly.

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Looking back over the decades

The turnover of fruit and berry crops must be calculated for a long period. Sometimes gardeners reason like this: an apple tree grows for 15-30 years or more, and many bushes live on average for 10-15 years. When they start getting old, then we will decide where to plant the new ones. But time is fleeting: six years - and already it is necessary to update the raspberry tree. Where can I find a place for him? On the northern border, everything is occupied by honeysuckle, wild rose, mountain ash, irga, on the left and right - currants, on the south side - a gooseberry barrier. They still need to be uprooted.

It remains to remove the old and plant new raspberries in the same place. But the time has come to remove the black currant, but all the places along the fence are occupied. Maybe swap it with raspberries? Not the point. Plant new seedlings nearby: they will grow up in two years, then uproot the old ones? Also not an option. After all, if at least one bud with a mite remains unnoticed on old bushes, the newly planted plants will soon be infected.

The turnover of crops helps to establish order on the site, correctly, taking into account the biological characteristics of plants, plan and place their plantings.

You can't do without a reserve

In order not to be left without fruits and berries for the period of soil preparation, the main and reserve places for each crop should be provided on the site.

The annual harvest is also guaranteed by different planting ages. After the uprooting of one or another berry crop, organic fertilizers of 6-8 kg per 1 m2 are applied to the site, and the earth is dug up.

The next year, this place is sown with melliferous green manure crops. In the flowering phase, they are mown, crushed with a shovel and dug up together with the soil.

At the end of summer, in autumn, the soil is loosened several times, destroying weeds, and watered. In the early years of the development of the garden, until the shrubs began to produce crops, the shortage of berries can be compensated for by strawberries, doubling the area under it.

After three years of fruiting, the strawberry plants are removed (burned or composted) immediately after harvest. 6-8 kg are applied to the site per 1m² of humus.

In the fall, you can plant currants or gooseberries, but it is better to sow the site with green manure crops for another one or two years before planting or grow root crops (radish, beets, rutabagas).

Protector neighbors

After uprooting the raspberries, pay attention to the remaining growth. Marigolds are a good precursor for raspberries and strawberries. During flowering, they are embedded in the soil - this is a kind of method for fighting the nematode.

Classic examples of using plants as protection against pests are joint planting of strawberries and garlic, as well as planting black elderberries on the site. The presence of this plant saves the gooseberry from the moth and moth, the apple and plum from the moth, and the currant from the kidney mite.

Blackroot will protect plants from rodent attacks.