Cropping Pattern for Maintaining Soil Fertility
The question asks for a cropping pattern that sustains soil fertility using planned crop succession. Let's analyze the options:
Understanding Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is an agricultural technique where different types of crops are grown sequentially on the same land. This planned succession helps in:
- Maintaining soil structure and health.
- Managing and reducing soil-borne pests and diseases.
- Replenishing soil nutrients, thereby maintaining soil fertility. For instance, planting legumes can fix atmospheric nitrogen, enriching the soil for subsequent crops.
This method directly addresses the requirement of planned crop succession to keep the soil fertile over time.
Why Other Options Are Less Suitable
- Monocropping: Continuously growing the same crop depletes specific nutrients and can degrade soil fertility and health over time.
- Mixed cropping: Growing multiple crops simultaneously on the same land maximizes land use efficiency but doesn't inherently rely on planned crop succession for fertility maintenance in the same way rotation does.
- Relay cropping: This involves planting a second crop before the first is harvested, optimizing the growing season. While beneficial, its primary focus isn't systematic nutrient replenishment through succession like crop rotation.
Therefore, crop rotation is the specific cropping pattern designed for maintaining soil fertility through planned crop succession.
Important Questions from Agriculture
Which one of the following terms describes the practice of growing two or more crops simultaneously on the same piece of land?
Directions: The following 05 (Five) items consist of two statements, Statement I and Statement II. Examine these two statements carefully and select the answers to these items using the code given below:
Statement I: India has a wide variation in population density.
Statement II: Factors like agricultural productivity and the history of the settlement have greatly influenced the population density pattern in India.
Which of the following are the characteristics of organic farming?
1. Use of chemical fertilizers to improve soil fertility.
2. Frequent decomposing and fallowing.
3. Use of herbs to control pests.
4. Higher productivity per hectare.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
A farmer in a semi-arid area claims that his farming practice is very environment friendly. Which of the following practices on his farm can justify his claim?
1. Planning a tree belt.
2. Practising crop rotation.
3. Carrying out a large scale irrigation system
4. Using organic fertilizers.
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Which of the following statements about the Livestock sector in India is/are correct?
1. Livestock contributed about 25 per cent of gross value added in agriculture.
2. It provides self-employment to a large segment of the population
3. The rapid growth of the livestock sector can be egalitarian inclusive
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
