In article
,
Billy wrote:
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.
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Here's the link
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/...172715742.html
-EVP MAN
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Thanks.
As I mentioned, my garden makes crop rotation difficult, and I remember
posting in "wrecked gardens" how I never rotated my crops, and
everything was fine.
To a hobbist, a bad year is acceptable, but when you begin to depend on
your garden to feed you, or to grow produce commercially, a bad year is
unacceptable. Then it becomes a matter of crossing all the "t"s and
dotting all the "i"s in your gardening approach to productivity, in
business, it's called CYA (cover your ass).
The gardening bed where I'm having trouble with tomatoes (2 years in a
row), I've planted potatoes, obviously not my best choice. If the
problem continues, next year it will be strictly brassica with a heavy
dose of mustard early in the season. I don't like this because it
requires that I turn the mustard into the soil;
http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2009/1...ia-growers-add
-hot-mustard.html
and I'm trying to do no-till gardening. The other implication is that I
will have fewer beds for the Solanaceae family, so I may have to change
my style of eating, or develop new beds.
What it all boils down to is, yes, you can forget about crop rotation
but you will assume added risk. Problems can fly in, blow in, walk in,
or even ride in with the seed, and then set up house keeping in our
garden beds. If your risks includes flying insects, or sporulating fungi
(ergot or odium), a quarter mile may not be enough, but these aren't
typically the problems that we gardeners face. Most of our problems
revolve around soil pests. With soil bound pests, we can do is to make
the bed as uninviting as possible. Pest wants Solanaceae, give it
Brassicaceae. It may not starve to death but it won't be a happy camper
and flourish either.
A shovel can spread infection, so if you suspect you have a problem,
spray all the dirt off your shovel and soak it in a bleach solution
(1/4 c bleach to 5 gal water) for 20 min., or wipe the cleaned shovel
with a bleach dipped rag. (This is another benefit of no-dig gardening.)
There is no fool proof way to avoid pests but you can make your garden
as uninviting as possible.
http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortn...8/rotateg.html
--
- 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
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/HZinn_page.html