Is crop rotation *that* important?

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Is crop rotation *that* important?
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Is small-scale crop rotation really that important?

Yes, it's vital to stop your crops getting the lurgy.

63%

[ 19 ]

No, life's too short and anyway the allotment's too small.

36%

[ 11 ]

Total Votes : 30

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robkb

Joined: 29 May 2009
Posts: 4205
Location: SE London

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 3:25 pm Post subject: Is crop rotation that important?
There's a thread on another forum asking if it's okay for spuds to follow spuds. Most of the replies say yes, and go on to say that on an allotment scale, crop rotation is pretty overrated. So what do people here think? I agree to a certain extent, it's an admirable goal, but I hardly ever achieve the classic 4 bed rotation - after a while things simply get put where there's space!

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45425
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 3:34 pm Post subject:
It seems a logical and reasoned system, I'm not always 100% on top of it but it's how I like to grow.

robkb

Joined: 29 May 2009
Posts: 4205
Location: SE London

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 3:37 pm Post subject:
It's how I would like to grow, if I was more organised. Everything gets shifted about a bit, but not in classic gardening-book style

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45425
Location: Essex

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 3:46 pm Post subject:
I don't think I do anything by the book, but I do bear in mind anything that makes sense to me when I'm planting.

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 3:54 pm Post subject:
It makes sense to me. If it was good enough for Jethro Tull, then its good enough for me and he made great music too.

earthyvirgo

Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 4:07 pm Post subject:
The only things I tend to rotate (or not plant in exactly the same spot two years running), are dwarf french beans ...I must have read it somewhere and it stuck. AT the moment our veg garden is so small, I haven't really got much choice but to plant whatever fits wherever. I haven't noticed any weakening or deterioration in crops. EV

gythagirl

Joined: 18 Feb 2010
Posts: 1467
Location: Somerset

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 4:51 pm Post subject:

I refuse this year to wind myself up agonising over crop rotation. I always have an imbalance in the size of the different rotation groups each year and tie myself up in knots trying not to get it wrong. But on one of Charles Dowding's No-Dig gardening courses in September I was mightily cheered by his views: that the original and excellent crop rotation system (a la Jethro Tull) were developed to combat nasties in large scale agricuture, where the same crop was being grown year after year, and in domestic garden/allotment situation there is always enough crop diversity to ensure no pests and diseases build up, especially if the beds have a good layer of manure/compost added each year.

So I will be planning and planting with impunity where it suits ME and save myself a huge amount of angst to boot

For those interested:

[url]https://www.charlesdowding.co.uk [/url]

Went

Joined: 19 Mar 2006
Posts: 6968

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 4:53 pm Post subject:
We rotate where possible but it doesn't always quite work out - the seasons change and are never the same. I think it does help reduce disease and infestations but only along with other strategies such as keeping a tidy growing area, replenishing the soil and such..

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 5:01 pm Post subject:

I'm sure you can get away with not rotating crops in the short term.

Or else a kind of abbreviated rotation.
For example, in one place with a smaller veg patch than here, I had half of it to spuds and the other half to the other three : brassicas, legumes, roots, plus whatever else. Within 'the other three' there was rotation, but not for spuds.
Dunno how long I could have carried on doing that before potato diseases happened.

There's more to the 4-course rotation than preventing disease, however; it's also to do with pH needs, fertility use/creation, weed suppression through the various plants' leaf canopies, soil structure and rooting requirements, and so on :

Spuds : dig soil over deeply and manure, which helps lower pH since potatoes like a pH of 5.5; lifting crop stirs up the soil again, and the growing of the spuds uses up soil fertility provided by the manure. Leaf canopy helps deter weeds.

Lime applied only if necessary (really acid soil) after lifting crop

Legumes : shallower-rooting so do not disturb the soil for the following year; leaf canopy not so dense so weeds will be an issue; will make own fertility and store it in root nodules, which can be left to break down in the soil to add fertility to the next crop

Apply lime in the autumn cos brassicas need it !

Brassicas : deeper rooting; need a firm soil to anchor the heavy tall ones, and so that they can heart up; need less acidity; can use the fertility generated by the legumes, no need for manure unless just a light top-dressing the following spring; leaf canopy quite good, so weeds a bit inhibited (good for the roots that follow).

Roots : do not need added fertility or some (e.g. carrots) will fork/fang; poor leaf canopy so weeds will grow, but will be reduced by spuds the next year; pH after brassicas is good for roots; the soil broken up after brassicas taken out is good for roots to grow in.

and so on, round the rotation.

Main thing to beware of is club root in brassicas, I reckon.

A lot of things can be put in wherever they will fit : chard, beetroot, spinach, perpetual spinach beet; and wherever there is sufficient fertility in the soil : salads, curcurbits.

Mr O

Joined: 13 Feb 2005
Posts: 5512
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 5:03 pm Post subject:
Rotation was used before all those horrible chemicals were available. I rotate every year and the benefits are great. Without rotation you face crop failure in the worst case or small returns, unless you resort to chemicals.

gardening-girl

Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 6024
Location: Somerset.

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 5:08 pm Post subject:
We always rotate spuds,beans, roots and brassicas.This means that everywhere is mucked over a four year plan. You never plant onions in the same place as this can cause disease.

NorthernMonkeyGirl

Joined: 10 Apr 2011
Posts: 4587
Location: Peeping over your shoulder

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 5:14 pm Post subject:

On the one hand, it seems bleedin' obvious.

On the other hand, by the time I've allowed for what likes the sun, the shade, something to climb up, rocky soil, fine soil.....well, I can't move walls to allow for a rotation!

Also, according to this https://www.paseedsavers.org/images/Root%20Depth%20Diagram.jpg the roots of most plants will spread far beyond their patch, so they are all present in most of the soil anyway...

I think it's more valuable in monoculture/large scale crops/ where there is sufficient space/suitable conditions.... I intend to grow such a mixture that there is no monoculture

Andrea

Joined: 02 May 2005
Posts: 2260
Location: Portugal

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 12 5:16 pm Post subject:
We aim to rotate, but it doesn't always happen as we set out to. Potatoes are easy as they have a whole field to themselves, cabbages are a pain as the ones we grow last about three years. Trying to get a new rotation plan together at the moment, five patches with three given over to strawberries and two to annual veg. Potatoes and cabbage grown elsewhere.

Andy B

Joined: 12 Jan 2005
Posts: 3920
Location: Brum

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 12 1:14 pm Post subject:
Different plants take different thing out of the soil while other plants put stuff back if you want to get away from using chemicals you will need to rotate, use that with plenty of top dressed compost with as little digging as you can get away with and your soil will just keep getting better.

Luath

Joined: 03 Dec 2009
Posts: 761

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 12 11:17 am Post subject:

The theory of crop rotation is useful as a guide, but doesn't have to be followed to the letter. I don't plant anything in the same place twice, ever; it's useful to plant crops that will follow previous crops well - ones that use a lot of nitrogen following legumes, where notrogen is fixed in the soil by the roots, and where you leave the roots of the plants to rot down after cropping for example.
For me, diversity and intercropping and lots of flowers are more important in a garden situation than slavishly following the four year rule, and prompt removal of any diseased stuff.

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