What is crop rotation?

What is crop rotation?

Melissa Kidd (Soil Association Information Officer) gives expert video advice on: Is eating organic better for the environment? and more...

Crop rotations are the best, most sustainable way of building fertility on the farm. Crop rotations mean that you're planting a selection of crops in an order, so it's not, for example, planting one crop year after year, because crops take different things out of the soil. Some crops are incredibly hungry and will sap out quite a lot of nutrients from the soil. Other crops actually put in nutrients into the soil. Sometimes you just want the soil to have a rest. On an organic farm, about a third of the farm will be sown with clover, and clover's really important because it actually adds nitrogen to the soil, whereas potatoes, for example, are quite hungry and they take out quite a lot of nutrients. To maintain that balance, you need to have a variety of crops growing on your farm in an order, and that helps with weeds and pests as well as building fertility. Crop rotation is one of the foundation principles of organic farming.