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Billy[_10_] · 12-05-2010, 06:25 AM posted to rec.gardens

In article ,
(EVP MAN) wrote:

I was just reading in another group where crop rotation for the home
gardener really doesn't help much in preventing plant diseases. The
reasoning behind this thought is that the average home gardener simply
can't move his crops far enough away from where they were planted the
previous year. The article stated that you need to move your crop at
least 1/4 mile away because it's likely that the soil will be diseased
up to that distance. One guy in the group said he has been planting his
tomatoes in the same spot year after year for many years now and can see
no difference. Others in the group also confirm this and state that
they get a good crop every year as long as the soil is properly
fertilized each year. Seems to make sense to me. Your thoughts on
rotating crops a very short distance compared to no less than a 1/4 mile
from where they were grown last season

Rich

It would really help, if you could identify your source of
misinformation.

The problem is with monocultures, where a pest can set up house and wait
for its favorite substrate to be replanted. I have 2 problematic spots
in my garden. In my root garden, if I plant basil next to the retaining
wall, a wilt kills them. (Was probably the seeds that introduced it and
no basil has been planted there in 3 years. In 2 years, I may try
again.) In another bed, I have a ten foot section where beans and
tomatoes get leaf curl and wither away. The other 6 feet are fine. The
tomatoes 50 ft. away are fine.

Plants within the same taxonomic family tend to have similar pests and
pathogens. My problem is that I grow so much from the family Solanaceae
(peppers, tomatoes, potatoes), which take the sunniest portions of my
yard with the cucurbits getting the area that is a little less sunny,
and the Swiss chard and the lettuce getting the least sunniest areas.

I got away with no crop rotation for 10 years. Now I pay attention.

If you can rotate your crops from one end of a raised planter to the
other end, I think you will save yourself some grief.

A quarter mile is more what you do to avoid cross pollination.
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arn3lF5XSUg
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