If you allow your land to rest in the seventh year, will your land be more productive?
I mean, in real life. Because today, there isn't good farming and the erosion. So if you let it rest in the seventh year, would it be more productive?
If you find anything, go ahead and post it for me. Thanks for your help.
Answer:
Well, my grandfather was a farmer. From what I learned from him, you should let land rest, but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't plant anything there. You can plant a different kind of crop in the same field every year and it doesn't use up all of the nutrients as much as if you planted the same thing there again and again. There are certain kinds of crops that you should plant in intervals so that they can balance each other out. I'm not exactly sure what they are, but for instance, you might plant corn in a field one year and watermelons in the same field the next year and it will grow better than it would if you had used that field strictly for corn every year.
Crop rotation is probably more effective.
The source of the following information is listed below.
Soil quality can be maintained or enhanced through the use of appropriate crop production technologies and related resource management systems that involve the composition, structure, and function of entire ecosystems. Beneficial farm-level soil management practices are designed to maintain the quality and long-term productivity of the soil and to mitigate environmental damage from crop production. These practices include crop rotations, crop residue management (including cover crops) and conservation tillage, and field/landscape scale engineering structures and buffers like grass waterways, terraces, contour-farming, strip-cropping, underground drainage outlets, and surface diversion/drainage channels. Also beneficial to soil quality are certain nutrient (see AREI Chapter 4.4), pest (see AREI Chapter 4.3), and irrigation practices (see AREI Chapter 4.6).
I took a soils class recently and it was very interesting! Good luck!
plants get up to 80% of their nutrients from the air. so when ever a farm is left out for a year the vegetation that naturally grows wild or a cover crop that will not be harvested that is planted by the farmer pulls nutrients out of the air. the following year the vegetation is plowed under. all of the nutrients the wild crop pulled out of the air will now be there for the next commercial crop.
leaving land untouched also helps the earthworm population. earthworms and other beneficial insects help the soil tilth and digest the plant matter from the year before to make natural fertilizer.
this will make the land more fertile and give it more potential to grow a better crop, but depending on what year you decide to leave it out will make a difference on actual productivity (money)
farming is gambling with the weather and the markets!
commercial agriculture has abandoned letting land rest.
organic farmers are still sticking to it though!
It isn't that simple, but the saying is based on fact, farmers allow some of their fields to go to "fallow" occasionally to allow nutrients time to break down and enrich the soil. What you need to look up is sustainable agriculture or "permaculture". Permaculture involves crop rotation, diversification and monitoring of the nutrition cycle to actually enrich the soil rather than deplete it. If done properly you never have to let a field go to fallow.
PERMACULTURE ANSWER
there is good farming and bad farming and mediocre
the bibles farming was mediocre
so they were wise to let if rest once in a while ,
the same way the North American Natives planted corn in different places all the time ,and so ensuring the optimum rich ness of the soil that applied to their methods
SUSTAINABLE FARMING
the Central And south American Indians had better instruction from their probably Alien masters and were into sophisticated organic farming using carbon soils made from burning plants as in the Amazon basin ,
or the way the Aztecs used the Human blood at the time of the sacrifices and the excrement from the public toilets mixed with the rich mud from the lake and mulching on an everyday basis
their chinampas are functioning after 800 years with out seven year breaks
and the Inca terrazed gardens using mulch and haveng the land shaped to be as receptive as possible to ebverything that fell on it,
all of these ancient agriculture were biodiverse systems consisting of many product produced along side each other.
In Mexico today are still examples from old Indian agricultural practises of diversity or companion planting.
where by a series of 7 or 8 species of plants are put together or one folows the other.to create biodiversity ,and utilisation of space.
Corn is planted for example ,wich is followed 4 weeks later by a bean that climbs it.
and agavi and edible cactus is on the sides to protect these plants from foraging animals and add chemicals to the soil by their secretions.and others are in between to provide groundcover
there are many forms of sustainable farming in the past,and today those who follow the principles of permaculture,no till farming,organic or sustainable farming are the new generation of agriculturists who have seen the light.
NO TILL FARMING
it means not using a tractor and planting in mulch
the tractor is used inicially to shape the land and to make it receptive to water harvesting.
but after that the top layer of soil is left in peace so that microorganisms can get on with building soil
when ploughing the land this layer is killed over and over again ,making the soil dry out ,killing all micro-organisms ,and the soil becomes poor in no time,
No till farming is being adopted now by hardcore farmers who have traditionally farmed by ploughing for generations ,because production is double ,the work is far less .there are less weeds to contend with because these always arrive when the soil is broken,and in the end costs far less in both labor and tractor work
and fertilizer is not needed if one adds mulch and compost making the soil progressively richer
on top of that continued used of heavy machinary compacts the ground and raises the salt to the surface.
some general points on sustainable farming
MULCH
cut down the weeds before they produce seeds and leave them where they fall,they will cover the ground and put even more organic matter on top,you can use saw dust,leaves green or dry,and when you plant make a little space and plant in the mulch.this is the easiest quickest and by far most benificial way(for the quality of you soul)to prepare the land for planting
to prevent weeds from coming all you have to do it turn out the lights,you can even use cardboard or black plastic(this is good for strawberries because they will rot if they touch humid ground,and the bugs can get to them).
what you do is to cover the ground with mulch which is the same principal as compost but it includes the whole garden surface
the top part of the soil where the topsoil is being produced houses a world or microbiotic life.
Mulch is organic material green or dry that covers the ground,the thicker the better the composting process will turn it in to black topsoil
the humidity is preserved underneath and promotes the devellopment of worms(their exists no better compost than their excrements)and a variety of micro biotic life which together with the mulch produce more topsoil.
the mulch also keeps the ground temperature even and guards against the impact of the rain ,which would other wise brings salt to the surfave if on unprotected land
Mulch also prevents the soil from drying out because of the sun and, lay it open to wind erosian.
and it turn out the lights for any weeds that want to come up
do not use chemicals because the water will wash them into the ground and if enough people did that, you would be guilty of helping to contaminate subteranean water suplies that other people could be pumping up to drink
Further more land should be shaped to absorb and contain water(water harvesting) and the soil should rather be mulched instead of ploughed and so after the shapes have been made the land is hardly touched and soil continues to build with out destructive interuptions ,THE WORMS BELOW are turning and areating the soil for us keeping it fluffy and rich in compost,and they are a lot cheaper than running a tractor
WATER HARVESTING
,dig small dams every where to cath the rain water, and you can archieve that all of the rain water is absorbed by the land ,it will seep slowly into the ground to add to subteranean water suplies ,make sure that all the dams are interconnected by slow gradient ditches .just because you dont see water ,does not mean that it is not there .
Normally a land repels water and with the rains it runs over ground into the rivers and away.
think now that you want to make the land receptive or absorbent of all the water that falls on it.
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What is Permaculture
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i am just a plain person that did farming in Greece and i don't have a college degree like everyone else here just experience when we plant different vegetables in the garden each year they are rotated around in the garden to produce better crops,in the fields one it's corn the next year a different crop,tobacco and Virgina tobacco,plain tobacco was planted every year in the same fields because it does no harm,but when we planted Virgina tobacco it pull a Lot of nutrients out of the land and poison it then the land must sit put in a tracker plowing the land a let it sit 1year it has to be a different crop
Absolutely, The land does need a period of rest, also it is a great ideal to "rotate" the crops that are planted. Corn one year, beans the next, something else the next with the 7th year being planted with grass, rye or something like that.
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