Crop Rotation Works - Here's Why
Sunday, July 21, 2013 - 10:20
in Biology & Nature
The ancient Romans were the first to officially discovered that rotating crops improves plant nutrition and inhibits the spread of disease. While it's common wisdom today, science is often about confirming why nature works the way it does. A new paper details profound effect crop rotation has on enriching soil with bacteria, fungi and protozoa. Soil was collected from a field near Norwich and planted with wheat, oats and peas. After growing wheat, it remained largely unchanged and the microbes in it were mostly bacteria. However, growing oat and pea in the same sample caused a huge shift towards protozoa and nematode worms. Soil grown with peas was highly enriched for fungi. read more