Ancient practices still have a place in this modern era as wisdom never becomes stale. In the agricultural industry, this is exemplified by the practice of crop rotation. No matter what modern types of tractors, combines, and sprayers a famer may employ, the keys to a good harvest have changed very little.
Black Thaxton, commercial horticulture agent at the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) Extension office, said “Crop rotation was probably in practice before they knew why.” Not all plants take the same material from the soil nor do they contract the same diseases. Thaxton said, “It’s important to rotate crops. If you keep growing the same crop, you get a buildup of disease. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are from the same family. You need to rotate out of a family.”
Commercial farmer, Mickey Diamond, with 1,800 total acres, said “Peanuts and cotton work good together. I may rotate wheat in winter then cotton behind the wheat.” Diamond also spoke of rotation and plant disease saying, “Cotton is a host for reniform nematode and peanuts are a host for root knot nematode.” He said as a farmer rotates crops, one type of nematode decreases as the other begins to rise. According to an article by William T. Crow and Robert A. Dunn, in the Extension’s Electronic Data Information Source (EDIS), “Nematodes that attack plants are worms, mostly microscopic in size. Plant nematodes attack all crops grown in Florida, causing farmers millions of dollars in crop loss annually.”
Thaxton also said some farmers plant a crop for the sole purpose of rotation, not as a cash crop. “It’s for soil health purposes. You may see wheat during the cool season in a cotton field. They also use legumes. Sunn hemp [a legume] puts nitrogen in the soil. Some may do a mix, rye grass with cowpeas. The root system of grains fluff soil and break it down.”
Diamond said he may plant cotton for the sake of rotation alone, but also has to rotate to handle the amounts of a crop he would harvest. “There’s not a lot of money in cotton,” he said. He also said he doesn’t rotate every field. “It’s due to the lack of good prices. Sometimes I’ll have to forfeit rotation to make a profit. I have to farm those differently, with different fertilizers and nemacide.”
The recent heavy rains also play a part in rotation. Diamond pointed out a dead spot in a field and said, “I planted this spot four times and every time it would rain, it wouldn’t be just a shower that passes. It would be three to four inches of rain.” These heavy rains, he said, would drown out a crop. He described wheat as a “dry weather” crop. Too much rain damages the kernel, he said.
Diamond said he’s planted more soy beans than normal because the prices are low for cotton while good for soy and soy can be planted later in the season. “You can’t plant cotton this late because it won’t mature before the first frost.”
For those who want to see directly how food comes to their plates, Diamond said the Farm Tour will be this September. “They’ll see peanut harvesting in action.” For more information on the Farm Tour, contact the IFAS Extension office at 623-3868.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Crop rotation: the keys to a good harvest