Crop rotation comparisons

A publication from the Land Stewardship Project describes four sustainable farms in Minnesota (Chan-Muehlbauer et al, 1994). None of the four farmers use herbicides in their corn fields. For weed control they rely on extended crop rotations with alfalfa, mechanical cultivation with a rotary hoe and cultivator, and late planting of com to allow mechanical control of the first flush of weeds. One farmer reported that the com crop is cultivated three to five times. The report details the 1992 com yields at these four farms in comparison to the average yields in the same regions. In all cases, the yields of the sustainable farms were lower than the average yields in their regions. The reduced yields for the four farms were -38%, -11%, -7%, and -5%. 

Leake, A.R. 1996. The effect of cropping sequences and rotational management an economic comparison of conventional, integrated and organic systems. Aspects of Applied Biology 47 185-195. 

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