Fallow is a
farming
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...
technique in which
arable land
Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for th ...
is left without
sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store
organic matter while retaining
moisture and disrupting pest life cycles and
soil borne pathogen A soil borne pathogen is a disease-causing agent which lives both in soil and in a plant host, and which will tend to infect undiseased plants which are grown in that soil. Common soil borne pathogens include ''Fusarium'', ''Pythium'', ''Rhizoctoni ...
s by temporarily removing their
hosts
A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it.
Host may also refer to:
Places
* Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County
People
*Jim Host (born 1937), American businessman
*Michel Host ...
.
Crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant ...
systems typically called for some of a farmer's fields to be left fallow each year.
The increase in
intensive farming, including the use of
cover crops in lieu of fallow practices, has caused a loss of acreage of fallow land, as well as field margins, hedges, and wasteland. This has reduced
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic ('' genetic variability''), species ('' species diversity''), and ecosystem ('' ecosystem diversity'') ...
; fallows have been the primary habitat for farmland bird populations.
Fallow syndrome
Fallow syndrome is when a crop has insufficient nutrient uptake due to the lack of
arbuscular mycorhizae
An arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) (plural ''mycorrhizae'', a.k.a. ''endomycorrhiza'') is a type of mycorrhiza in which the symbiont fungus (''AM fungi'', or AMF) penetrates the cortical cells of the roots of a vascular plant forming arbuscules. (N ...
(AM fungi) in the soil following a fallow period. Crops such as corn that are prone to fallow syndrome should not follow a period of fallow, but instead should follow a
cover crop which is a host for AM fungi, such as oats or other small grain crops. The presence of ''any'' plant roots, including weeds, can reduce occurrence of fallow syndrome. Nowadays, agricultural fields are routinely planted with cover crops to prevent erosion, keep down weeds, provide a
green manure
In agriculture, a green manure is a crop specifically produced to be incorporated into the soil while still green. Typically, the green manure's biomass is incorporated with a plow or disk, as is often done with (brown) manure. The primary goal ...
, and reduce the risk of fallow syndrome.
How to prevent fallow syndrome in corn
Minnesota Crop News, March 16, 2020
See also
* Dryland farming
Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtua ...
* Crop rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant ...
* No-till farming
* Shifting cultivation
Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cu ...
* Shmita
The sabbath year (shmita; he, שמיטה, literally "release"), also called the sabbatical year or ''shǝvi'it'' (, literally "seventh"), or "Sabbath of The Land", is the seventh year of the seven-year agricultural cycle mandated by the Torah ...
References
Rural geography
{{Agri-stub