Practices

Crop Rotation

Citation Formats

General Reference

Agriculture and Farming Atlas. "Crop Rotation." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/practices/crop-rotation.

APA Style

Agriculture and Farming Atlas. (n.d.). Crop Rotation. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/practices/crop-rotation

BibTeX

@misc{agricultureandfarmingatlas-crop-rotation,
  author = {Agriculture and Farming Atlas},
  title = {Crop Rotation},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/practices/crop-rotation},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Growing different crops on the same field in an ordered sequence, so a nitrogen-fixing legume restores what a hungry cereal took and pests of one crop starve during the years of another. From the medieval three-field system to the four-course Norfolk rotation that powered the British Agricultural Revolution, rotation is the oldest reliable answer to soil exhaustion.

Facts

Practice Class

Soil fertility and pest management 1

Origin

Practiced since antiquity; systematized in medieval Europe and refined into the four-course Norfolk rotation in 18th century England 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

British Agricultural Revolution

The Norfolk four-course rotation is a pillar of the revolution

Source British Agricultural Revolution (Wikipedia)

Integrated Pest Management

Crop rotation, breaking a pest's life cycle by denying it the same host in successive seasons, is one of integrated pest management's standard cultural tools.

Source Integrated Pest Management (Wikipedia)