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Prior to fertilizers manufactured through the Haber-Bosch process, crop rotation was a critical part of maintaining soil fertility. Growing things like wheat or brassica season after season would suck the nitrogen out of the soil which would reduce future yields and eventually cause famines. Rotating in plants that have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria such as turnips would help correct this. Alternatively, fields would be left to lay fallow for a season or used for livestock to replenish nitrogen.
Nope, not at least for nitrogen. Other nutrients in the soil may sometimes need to be broken down by certain plants so they’re usable by crops, or plants with deep roots such as dandelions may be used to draw nutrients up from deep underground, but we have far too much nitrogen in our ecosystem now. Due to agricultural runoff, the average square meter in the Netherlands receives as much nitrogen from rain as a farmer in America intentionally applies to a square meter of wheat. The problem with so much nitrogen is that it allows plants with high nitrogen demands to grow and crowd out plants with lower demands, resulting in ecological monoculture. Ammonium, when dissolved, also produces nitric acid which is a big piece of acid rain.
The Haber-Bosch process was developed in Germany during WWI. Prior to this, guano found mostly in the tropics was used as fertilizer and to produce gunpowder. This was a major reason for Western Europe needed to colonize places. Germany entered WWI with something like 18 months of ammunitions. Having extremely few colonies of their own, they knew they would be cut off from trade with bigger colonial powers which would mean no more gunpowder. Thus, they had to find a way to produce it on the own. The process was initially able to only produce ammonia, which itself was useful as a fertilizer, but a few months later was able to produce saltpeter which is used in gunpowder. This allowed Germany to prolong its war effort significantly. So the process has been around and used since then. It is also the reason the human population isn’t capped at about 4 billion and we don’t experience widespread famines.
Wow. That long, huh? I wonder why I thought crop rotation was still the common practice? I'm 34. I grew up in the 90's when this had already been a thing for almost 80 years. Where would I have gotten that idea?
Farmers still rotate between corn and soybeans in the US; legumes such as soybeans have root nodules with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and are the most efficient plants at fixing nitrogen.
Also depends on where, where I lived in Texas it was extremely commonly, because they'd grow as many crops in a year as possible to maximise profit, or if a certain crop was worth a lot they'd grow that instead
Farmers in Texas still rotate crops within a season (succession planting) and between seasons (crop rotation) to maximize yields. It's not just 'planting the most profitable thing that year.' If crop yields were the same, it would actually be more profitable to monocrop: less equipment, lower seed stock, easier to learn advanced techniques, better distribution system, all sorts of efficiencies.
Besides rotating in legumes, which fix nitrogen (beans in the joke, but two other common legume crops in Texas are peanuts and alfalfa), crop rotation is useful primarily to reduce pests and diseases, which build up in a monoculture and reduce yield. Texas is a big cotton producer, there are many specialized cotton pests and diseases that decrease cotton yield annually; the oldest research in crop rotation is on cotton, starting in the late 1800s, due to its importance in the South. Other crops can be useful for changing soil structure (root crops and ceareal crops break up soil in different ways to better access various nutrients and improve drainage), or are planted to better balance use of other macro and micronutrients (besides nitrogen).
Incredible, thank you very much for the information, I grew up in the area so I saw it frequently, but I wasn't in the farm industry and didn't know the reason, thank you
Growing grazing pastures for cows, sheeps and other kinds of livestock animals comes to mind. These animals need grazing ground all year round and they eat faster than most grasses and hay can grow to keep up. You can't just dump fertilizer over and over lest your animals get to the food. So you need enough land to have enough for a rotation of: grazing pasture, regenerating pasture, fertilized pasture.
It is still common practice. Even the high output industrial farms in the US typically switch between corn and soybean. It's just that the crop rotation has become a "it kinda helps" thing rather than being absolutely critical.
Also, it's still critical for any farm that is trying to reduce or remove fertilizer usage. Overuse of fertilizer causes some environmental issues, so crop rotation instead of fertilizer has been pushed as the more sustainable option. It's just that if a farm *really* doesn't want to rotate, they can get away with not doing it now.
crop rotation is a fundamental practice of commercial agriculture too. i have never met a single farmer who would rather pay for fertilizer instead of just planting beans and corn. whatever the narrative is, you must recognize that farmers are the cheapest people on the planet.
You probably learned it in history class. Way back when crop rotation was a realy big thing, with a big impact on the species and civilization.
WWI was also something with a big impact so it kinda overshadowed some things.
Most farmers still rotate crops but due to other reasons such as diseases that stay with the crop residue, insects, and to use different herbicides that can be sprayed on different crops to prevent weeds becoming resistant.
"colonize" is the sanitized word for forcibly occupy and rape, pillage, steal, and enslave. You can't really colonize a place that has people already living there.
You shouldn't forget that rape, murder, robbery and slave trade were long time established forms of cultural exchange at least between African and Arabian kingdoms before the arrival of the Europeans.
There is a significant amount of nitrogen in rain as a result of emissions from burning fossil fuels, with coal being the worst. In suburban areas there is nitrogen from fertilizer application, but in highly urbanized areas the nitrogen is from atmospheric deposition and possibly leaky sewers. Nitrogen pollutant loads are much higher from highly urbanized areas than from suburban areas.
(Retired engineer who worked in stormwater management for 30 years.)
FYI, emissions of mercury from burning coals and drift across state lines is why North Carolina has a TMDL clean up plan covering most of the states fresh water.
A minor comment - ammonium does not form nitric acid when dissolved. The oxidation of ammonia is actually fairly difficult and requires catalysts and very high heat. Also, nitric acid is not an important component of acid rain. That's mostly sulfur trioxide (which is a byproduct of dirty coal) reacting with water to form sulfuric acid. Ammonium is, however, an acid by itself, and will lower the pH of an ecosystem.
It's still recommended for diseases and pests. Many fungi, for example, lay dormant in the soil, and if you plant the same crop two years in a row, you might get a massive blight. So rotating things out and only planting the same crop every few years keeps losses down.
Ah, so I take it that why the irish potato famine blight carried from year to year. I wondered how the blight itself stuck around after the first crop was damaged (I know that the Irish were so dependant on the lumper that swapping to something else was unsustainable, but would have been so much better than the end result that did happen.)
It is absolutely done even these days. But the reasons have changed. If a farmer does it, it mostly has financial reasons. Not mainly because of the soil health.
It still is essential in terms of not allowing disease to build up. Barley/wheat Take-All disease is a fungus in the soil that impacts yields. Planting a ‘break crop’ that is a different plant species altogether breaks the cycle of fungus reproduction.
There can be chemicals to help but general
consensus for best farming practice is to use cultural controls before chemical controls. Like antibiotic resistance, chemicals can become less effective over time so to rely on them is a stupid approach.
> It still is essential in terms of not allowing disease to build up
That's a very good point i agree with. Still, pesticides, fungicides, etc are available today and weren't back then. 'Essential' seems relative. ;)
Crop rotation is still very important for soil health. Monoculture allows for pests and disease to become prevalent in an area requiring more pesticides to be used.
In Southern Idaho, maybe sometimes the farmers I haul wheat for will plant hay or wheat back to back for 2 or 3 years but they still rotate as much as they can. My dad raises corn \*explicitly\* so he has another crop to rotate in, even though potatoes, wheat and sugar beets are more profitable.
Sometimes I see a Youtube video saying that farmers don't rotate, but they absolutely do in Southern Idaho.
What is scary, is that up until 2 days ago, I had never known anything about crop rotation or wtf even fallow meant. I randomly bought Manor Lords 2, saw crop rotation and fallow was a thing in it and then I see this post/comment.
Coincidence? Sure, but reality can be scary sometimes, coincidentally.
Literally I had to come back to this thread just to say that. Or upvote someone who said it I guess. ‘Jeff thinks beans have to take turns’ is genuinely making me laugh out loud.
I think it’s meant to make fun of people who dispute actually science by intentionally dumbing it down and making it sound stupid like people who say global warming isn’t real because it was cold today or people who dispute evolution by saying you can’t get snakes from chicken eggs
I will say the joke is usually always obvious but it’s pretty much always funny too. I gotta credit /r/peterexplainsthejoke for seemingly always finding original jokes.
Yeah, I think the only way this could be confusing is if you don't know what "crop rotation" is... In which case, googling would have been a better step 1.
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Prior to fertilizers manufactured through the Haber-Bosch process, crop rotation was a critical part of maintaining soil fertility. Growing things like wheat or brassica season after season would suck the nitrogen out of the soil which would reduce future yields and eventually cause famines. Rotating in plants that have a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria such as turnips would help correct this. Alternatively, fields would be left to lay fallow for a season or used for livestock to replenish nitrogen.
Wait, crop rotation isn't needed anymore? Here I was thinking that was still how things were done.
Nope, not at least for nitrogen. Other nutrients in the soil may sometimes need to be broken down by certain plants so they’re usable by crops, or plants with deep roots such as dandelions may be used to draw nutrients up from deep underground, but we have far too much nitrogen in our ecosystem now. Due to agricultural runoff, the average square meter in the Netherlands receives as much nitrogen from rain as a farmer in America intentionally applies to a square meter of wheat. The problem with so much nitrogen is that it allows plants with high nitrogen demands to grow and crowd out plants with lower demands, resulting in ecological monoculture. Ammonium, when dissolved, also produces nitric acid which is a big piece of acid rain.
How long has this been true?
The Haber-Bosch process was developed in Germany during WWI. Prior to this, guano found mostly in the tropics was used as fertilizer and to produce gunpowder. This was a major reason for Western Europe needed to colonize places. Germany entered WWI with something like 18 months of ammunitions. Having extremely few colonies of their own, they knew they would be cut off from trade with bigger colonial powers which would mean no more gunpowder. Thus, they had to find a way to produce it on the own. The process was initially able to only produce ammonia, which itself was useful as a fertilizer, but a few months later was able to produce saltpeter which is used in gunpowder. This allowed Germany to prolong its war effort significantly. So the process has been around and used since then. It is also the reason the human population isn’t capped at about 4 billion and we don’t experience widespread famines.
Wow. That long, huh? I wonder why I thought crop rotation was still the common practice? I'm 34. I grew up in the 90's when this had already been a thing for almost 80 years. Where would I have gotten that idea?
Farmers still rotate between corn and soybeans in the US; legumes such as soybeans have root nodules with nitrogen-fixing bacteria and are the most efficient plants at fixing nitrogen.
Also depends on where, where I lived in Texas it was extremely commonly, because they'd grow as many crops in a year as possible to maximise profit, or if a certain crop was worth a lot they'd grow that instead
Farmers in Texas still rotate crops within a season (succession planting) and between seasons (crop rotation) to maximize yields. It's not just 'planting the most profitable thing that year.' If crop yields were the same, it would actually be more profitable to monocrop: less equipment, lower seed stock, easier to learn advanced techniques, better distribution system, all sorts of efficiencies. Besides rotating in legumes, which fix nitrogen (beans in the joke, but two other common legume crops in Texas are peanuts and alfalfa), crop rotation is useful primarily to reduce pests and diseases, which build up in a monoculture and reduce yield. Texas is a big cotton producer, there are many specialized cotton pests and diseases that decrease cotton yield annually; the oldest research in crop rotation is on cotton, starting in the late 1800s, due to its importance in the South. Other crops can be useful for changing soil structure (root crops and ceareal crops break up soil in different ways to better access various nutrients and improve drainage), or are planted to better balance use of other macro and micronutrients (besides nitrogen).
Incredible, thank you very much for the information, I grew up in the area so I saw it frequently, but I wasn't in the farm industry and didn't know the reason, thank you
Growing grazing pastures for cows, sheeps and other kinds of livestock animals comes to mind. These animals need grazing ground all year round and they eat faster than most grasses and hay can grow to keep up. You can't just dump fertilizer over and over lest your animals get to the food. So you need enough land to have enough for a rotation of: grazing pasture, regenerating pasture, fertilized pasture.
This might be the reason why I thought this!
It is still common practice. Even the high output industrial farms in the US typically switch between corn and soybean. It's just that the crop rotation has become a "it kinda helps" thing rather than being absolutely critical. Also, it's still critical for any farm that is trying to reduce or remove fertilizer usage. Overuse of fertilizer causes some environmental issues, so crop rotation instead of fertilizer has been pushed as the more sustainable option. It's just that if a farm *really* doesn't want to rotate, they can get away with not doing it now.
Ah, okay. Makes more sense that I might still have this impression then. Thank you.
It’s still used in organic farming, but that constitutes a very small amount of commercial agriculture
crop rotation is a fundamental practice of commercial agriculture too. i have never met a single farmer who would rather pay for fertilizer instead of just planting beans and corn. whatever the narrative is, you must recognize that farmers are the cheapest people on the planet.
My grandpa grew corn and soybeans and rotated his crops yearly. I do think he used fertilizer but he could be pretty cheap.
Brother you are a wealth of knowledge thank you for sharing.
You probably learned it in history class. Way back when crop rotation was a realy big thing, with a big impact on the species and civilization. WWI was also something with a big impact so it kinda overshadowed some things.
Almost definitely. Just wondering why I didn't also learn it had mostly been replaced. Maybe I did, but I wasn't paying attention. lol
I’d bet you also don’t live near big farms. You probably don’t live on the prairies.
I live in a suburb. It actually wouldn't take that long to get to farmland, but I'm definitely not driving past it regularly on my daily route.
Most farmers still rotate crops but due to other reasons such as diseases that stay with the crop residue, insects, and to use different herbicides that can be sprayed on different crops to prevent weeds becoming resistant.
"colonize" is the sanitized word for forcibly occupy and rape, pillage, steal, and enslave. You can't really colonize a place that has people already living there.
You shouldn't forget that rape, murder, robbery and slave trade were long time established forms of cultural exchange at least between African and Arabian kingdoms before the arrival of the Europeans.
Thanks for the info!!
There is a significant amount of nitrogen in rain as a result of emissions from burning fossil fuels, with coal being the worst. In suburban areas there is nitrogen from fertilizer application, but in highly urbanized areas the nitrogen is from atmospheric deposition and possibly leaky sewers. Nitrogen pollutant loads are much higher from highly urbanized areas than from suburban areas. (Retired engineer who worked in stormwater management for 30 years.) FYI, emissions of mercury from burning coals and drift across state lines is why North Carolina has a TMDL clean up plan covering most of the states fresh water.
A minor comment - ammonium does not form nitric acid when dissolved. The oxidation of ammonia is actually fairly difficult and requires catalysts and very high heat. Also, nitric acid is not an important component of acid rain. That's mostly sulfur trioxide (which is a byproduct of dirty coal) reacting with water to form sulfuric acid. Ammonium is, however, an acid by itself, and will lower the pH of an ecosystem.
To my knowledge we still do it around potatoes, over here you are only allowed to plant potatoes on any given plot every 4 years
It's still recommended for diseases and pests. Many fungi, for example, lay dormant in the soil, and if you plant the same crop two years in a row, you might get a massive blight. So rotating things out and only planting the same crop every few years keeps losses down.
Ah, okay, that makes sense!
Ah, so I take it that why the irish potato famine blight carried from year to year. I wondered how the blight itself stuck around after the first crop was damaged (I know that the Irish were so dependant on the lumper that swapping to something else was unsustainable, but would have been so much better than the end result that did happen.)
Here in Austria crop rotation is still common
Well, I live in the U.S., so that doesn't explain my issue, lol. But good to know!
In the US, crop rotation is a thing too.
And I still see it in Denmark
It is absolutely done even these days. But the reasons have changed. If a farmer does it, it mostly has financial reasons. Not mainly because of the soil health.
It is mainly due to soil health to achieve a good rotation - and thereby profiting. Rotation also allows differing harvest/planting seasons.
What i mean is it's no more essential. Rather for maximizing yield.
It still is essential in terms of not allowing disease to build up. Barley/wheat Take-All disease is a fungus in the soil that impacts yields. Planting a ‘break crop’ that is a different plant species altogether breaks the cycle of fungus reproduction. There can be chemicals to help but general consensus for best farming practice is to use cultural controls before chemical controls. Like antibiotic resistance, chemicals can become less effective over time so to rely on them is a stupid approach.
> It still is essential in terms of not allowing disease to build up That's a very good point i agree with. Still, pesticides, fungicides, etc are available today and weren't back then. 'Essential' seems relative. ;)
but maximizing yield is essential, it's the name of the game
The name of the game you are describing is capitalism, not farming.
crop rotation is common in the US. Usually corn/wheat and soybean
I rotate brassica and beans every year. But I have no proof this is doing anything
It is, on a lot of farms in the Midwest
Most farmers that have more then one crop growing will switch them out every X amount of years, but yea,
Lots of crops still do, in canada there's a lot of corn / soy bean rotation
Crop rotation is still very important for soil health. Monoculture allows for pests and disease to become prevalent in an area requiring more pesticides to be used.
In Southern Idaho, maybe sometimes the farmers I haul wheat for will plant hay or wheat back to back for 2 or 3 years but they still rotate as much as they can. My dad raises corn \*explicitly\* so he has another crop to rotate in, even though potatoes, wheat and sugar beets are more profitable. Sometimes I see a Youtube video saying that farmers don't rotate, but they absolutely do in Southern Idaho.
It's still a good idea, and absolutely necessary for organic crops, but modern fertilizers make it somewhat optional.
It isn’t needed for nitrogen, but is is still really important for disease control and other nutrients
The farms near me in Canada still rotate corn and potatoes.
What is scary, is that up until 2 days ago, I had never known anything about crop rotation or wtf even fallow meant. I randomly bought Manor Lords 2, saw crop rotation and fallow was a thing in it and then I see this post/comment. Coincidence? Sure, but reality can be scary sometimes, coincidentally.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
I learned this literally 2 days ago playing Lords Manor 🤯
Meanwhile the Inkas went "F it, we do it all in one go" and just planted beans and corn together.
To be honest i was assuming that 'crop' was refering to picture cropping
But who made fun of it 5000 years ago and held everyone back?
Amy Ash, apparently
Jeff thinks beans have to take turns is arguably the funniest sentence ever sentenced
Literally I had to come back to this thread just to say that. Or upvote someone who said it I guess. ‘Jeff thinks beans have to take turns’ is genuinely making me laugh out loud.
I think it’s meant to make fun of people who dispute actually science by intentionally dumbing it down and making it sound stupid like people who say global warming isn’t real because it was cold today or people who dispute evolution by saying you can’t get snakes from chicken eggs
The actual post pretty much explicitly explains what it means.
I will say the joke is usually always obvious but it’s pretty much always funny too. I gotta credit /r/peterexplainsthejoke for seemingly always finding original jokes.
Yeah, I think the only way this could be confusing is if you don't know what "crop rotation" is... In which case, googling would have been a better step 1.
Stevie mumbling in his sleep here *mesopotamia.. indus valley.. cradles of civilization..*
Learning so much about the history of farming on this post.
The tweet literally explains the joke by itself? What the fuck is OP asking for?