• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      All plants require different levels nutrients to grow. If the same plant is grown repeatedly in the same soil then the soil will run out of the nutrients that plant needs and growing that plant becomes difficult. By rotating through plants with different nutrient requirements, the soil can maintain a sustainable balance of nutrients.

      We now use the scientific method to argue ideas, but in the past ideas could just be laughed at if people thought they sounded dumb. People laughed at ideas like the sun being the center of the solar system and doctors needing to wash their hands before surgery. Refusal to accept these ideas held humanity back from technological advancement.

    • Person264@lemmings.world
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      6 months ago

      You can’t really grow the same crop in the same field season after season (without fertiliser), because they’ll sap the specific nutrients they need from the soil. If you do that over and over eventually the soil wont have any food for that crop. Growing something different each season that takes different nutrients from the soil lets it recover the other ones. I don’t know how it recovers on its own, circle of life stuff probably. Modern farming can cheat by artificially replenishing the nutrients with fertiliser.

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The problem is that even with crop rotation much of our soil is still nearly depleted. Most farmers aren’t doing enough varied rotation or rest cycles or regenerative farming since anything other than the same 2-3 crops isn’t profitable for them

    • SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      As others have said, a monoculture will drain those specific nutrients.

      Beans are kinda special being a nitrogen fixer. Lot of plants will drain nitrogen so we fertilize as supplement.

      Plant beans, squash, and corn together and you won’t need to rotate your fields and the plants will form a sort of symbiosis working together.

    • Darth_Reagan [they/them, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      farmers will rotate crops because they leech and release different nutrients from/into the soil. its common to follow up certain crops with beans because they release nitrogen or something into the soil. i’m sure someone else has a better understanding of how it works.

    • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      In addition to what Darth_Reagan said, it’s for pest control as well. By keeping a plant in the field for more than one season, you provide a food source for pests whose parents went there to feed the previous one. Some diseases only impact certain crops and can stick around in the dead matter only to attack your vulnerable new plants.

    • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      She is playing the part of the dumb antagonist saying Jeff is stupid for rotating his crops.

      Somehow the dumb antagonist is 5000 years old. Humanity can be dumb lol.

      • chatokun@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        She’s playing a collective of dumb antagonists, and Jeff may or may not be a collective of progressive thinking/experimenting people who were ignored throughout history despite their efforts.