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11.11: Summary

  • Page ID
    25057
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    There are literally dozens of ways to increase crop diversity on a particular farm through crop rotations and agroforestry. The specific selection of practices depends on the climate and soils, the expertise of the farmer, whether there are livestock on the farm or nearby, equipment and labor availability, family quality-of-life considerations and financial reality. (While striving for relatively good returns from each crop—potential price minus the cost of production—vegetable farmers will sometimes include low-return crops in their rotations because customers expect to find them in the mix at a farm stand or farmers’ market.) From an ecological view, longer and more complex rotations are preferred over shorter ones, and incorporating trees can provide stable long-term ecological benefits. Livestock can often make a soil-building rotation more attractive. It also makes a lot of sense, once equipment is in place, to stay flexible instead of having a rotation set in stone. If you’re ready to adjust to rapid market changes, shifts in labor availability, crop pest outbreaks or unusu


    This page titled 11.11: Summary is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Fred Magdoff & Harold van Es (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.