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Wouldn’t it be easier to just plant something else every other year? I thought this was solved literally 1000 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-

Wouldn’t it be easier to just plant something else every other year? I thought this was solved literally 1000 years ago: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-field_system

armenarmen 6y ago
I was always confused by this as well. Then I spoke to a person working in agriculture, apparently chemical fertilizers are cheap enough to make crop rotation redundant.
- AOsborn 6y ago
  As a layman I assumed that was the case. But I understand the bigger issue now is that both soil and crop nutrients are dropping in farms due to soil depletion[0]. 0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
  - hosh 6y ago
    Yeah. And not only that, the "regenerative agriculture" mentioned in the article isn't just about sustainable practices, where we put back into the soilwhat we take out. Regenerative practices includes practices where soil fertility is built up year after year as a result of the agricultural practices. In other words, you can take a depleted land and bring it back up into productive land, and potentially, become more productive than non-regenerative practices. You can grow more than a single plant together, and depending on the combination, they can synergize in a way that helps both of them grow. Some of that is due to pest management (where one plant species deters pests that raid the other). Some add nutrients (nitrogen fixers and other dynamic accumulators). Some can grow at different canopy layers (such as growing ground cover to help retain moisture while taller plants are used as trellises for vining plants). Some plants have deep tap roots that break up compacted soil and help draw out nutrients to make them bioavailable. Many of them are pioneer plants and are considered weeds or considered invasive.
    - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
      Much of big Ag is an effort to shortcut all this. Use a chisel plow to break up compacted soil. Add ammonia. Use earth movers to create more flat land with useful soils. Etc. The advantages are clear: you can decide when to do these things, and do them on a short schedule. Its hard to argue waiting 5 years for some remediation project to maybe work, when I have a chisel plow right over there in the shed.
      - hosh 6y ago
        Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people. I think the main path out of this is to have decentralized food systems, and this is where regenerative and resilient design patterns really shine. I think it starts with a shift in the mindset, where instead of seeing wealth as coming from extraction and hoarding, to seeing wealth in terms of being stewards of regenerative processes. We have pseudo-regenerative processes in the financial sector with compounding interest, but you can't directly eat money. I can eat the stuff from my backyard. The beautiful thing about participating in building a decentralized food system is that I don't have to convince you, or anyone else on HN to affect collective action. I can start doing these things in my home, and trade things with other like-minded people. I can offer up the excess abundance to my friends, family, and neighbors. Some of them may want to take up the practices themselves. Just to be clear, I used shortcuts too. I am using raised beds and importing compost and manure (buying them from big box stores). But I'm also taking the time to plant edible perennials. I only found out later, there are many ways to get even quicker turn around time -- sprouts, fast growing annuals, succession planting. I'm learning. Next year's growing season will incorporate more.
        core-questions 6y ago
        > we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people. Do you have an alternative to this? This is basically animal behaviour, it's not unique to humans. Most of that hoarding is out of an effort to get a mate, too.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Yup. When the problem is we refuse to price in the externalities, technological solutions are probably doomed, or at least nothing to be broad of. First jack up punitive taxes, then let tech do it's job. Market economics works far better when demand comes before supply.
- ArnoVW 6y ago
  Unfortunately we do not have an inexhaustible supply of fertilizer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
reginaldo 6y ago
The three-field system has the problem of leaving the soil uncovered which leads to erosion, which aggravates the nutrient depletion problem.
- jaggederest 6y ago
  At least in my experience you plant cover crops there and plow them under at the end. My relatives used field peas. And the four-field system is considered a strict upgrade over the three-field system last I heard, basically just 3 productive fields and 1 planted in cover crops. https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-Edition/Text-Version/Cover-Crops/Types-of-Cover-Crops https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-fo...
  - hosh 6y ago
    We can do better than that: - Someone figured out a way to grow comfrey (and other nitrogen fixers) in a separate field with low maintenance to supply mulch material for the main crop, without having to rely on animal manure. - There are people who built their animal barn at the top of a hill and dug swales to transport runoff from manure downward. They plant edibles all along the swale. Once established, low maintenance. - I saw another practice that involved growing grasses, and using grazers and micrograzers to increase fertility in depleted soil. It’s part of an overal system where fences and chicken trailers are used to move grazing around. Some of these practices may not be practical at scale, but that is not the point — these practices work well for decentralized food system
hosh 6y ago
We can do better than that. You can, for example, plant nitrogen fixers directly as a companion plant for the plants that are heavy feeders. (Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)) (But you'd still have to rotate out tomatoes and other nightshade family plants because of accumulated toxins in the soil). There's a way to do this kind of a thing with perennials, and better yet, in the backyard or in the neighborhood garden. That is as local and "farm to table" as you can get.
maire 6y ago
Monoculture is bad for bees even if you rotate every other year.
rorykoehler 6y ago
It’s much better to have a natural environment from a biodiversity perspective

armenarmen 6y ago

I was always confused by this as well. Then I spoke to a person working in agriculture, apparently chemical fertilizers are cheap enough to make crop rotation redundant.

AOsborn 6y ago
As a layman I assumed that was the case. But I understand the bigger issue now is that both soil and crop nutrients are dropping in farms due to soil depletion[0]. 0: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-and-nutrition-loss/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soil-depletion-an...
- hosh 6y ago
  Yeah. And not only that, the "regenerative agriculture" mentioned in the article isn't just about sustainable practices, where we put back into the soilwhat we take out. Regenerative practices includes practices where soil fertility is built up year after year as a result of the agricultural practices. In other words, you can take a depleted land and bring it back up into productive land, and potentially, become more productive than non-regenerative practices. You can grow more than a single plant together, and depending on the combination, they can synergize in a way that helps both of them grow. Some of that is due to pest management (where one plant species deters pests that raid the other). Some add nutrients (nitrogen fixers and other dynamic accumulators). Some can grow at different canopy layers (such as growing ground cover to help retain moisture while taller plants are used as trellises for vining plants). Some plants have deep tap roots that break up compacted soil and help draw out nutrients to make them bioavailable. Many of them are pioneer plants and are considered weeds or considered invasive.
  - JoeAltmaier 6y ago
    Much of big Ag is an effort to shortcut all this. Use a chisel plow to break up compacted soil. Add ammonia. Use earth movers to create more flat land with useful soils. Etc. The advantages are clear: you can decide when to do these things, and do them on a short schedule. Its hard to argue waiting 5 years for some remediation project to maybe work, when I have a chisel plow right over there in the shed.
    - hosh 6y ago
      Yeah. Big Ag is not incentivized to be sustainable, let alone be regenerative. Big Ag is certainly not resilient. Its very reward system (like modern commerce in general) is based on the extraction of resources (whether that be in the earth, or people resources), and then controlling access to them. Overharvesting always happen, because we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people. I think the main path out of this is to have decentralized food systems, and this is where regenerative and resilient design patterns really shine. I think it starts with a shift in the mindset, where instead of seeing wealth as coming from extraction and hoarding, to seeing wealth in terms of being stewards of regenerative processes. We have pseudo-regenerative processes in the financial sector with compounding interest, but you can't directly eat money. I can eat the stuff from my backyard. The beautiful thing about participating in building a decentralized food system is that I don't have to convince you, or anyone else on HN to affect collective action. I can start doing these things in my home, and trade things with other like-minded people. I can offer up the excess abundance to my friends, family, and neighbors. Some of them may want to take up the practices themselves. Just to be clear, I used shortcuts too. I am using raised beds and importing compost and manure (buying them from big box stores). But I'm also taking the time to plant edible perennials. I only found out later, there are many ways to get even quicker turn around time -- sprouts, fast growing annuals, succession planting. I'm learning. Next year's growing season will incorporate more.
      - core-questions 6y ago
        > we're culturally conditioned to define wealth and status in terms of how much one has hoarded more than other people. Do you have an alternative to this? This is basically animal behaviour, it's not unique to humans. Most of that hoarding is out of an effort to get a mate, too.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Yup. When the problem is we refuse to price in the externalities, technological solutions are probably doomed, or at least nothing to be broad of. First jack up punitive taxes, then let tech do it's job. Market economics works far better when demand comes before supply.
ArnoVW 6y ago
Unfortunately we do not have an inexhaustible supply of fertilizer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus

reginaldo 6y ago

The three-field system has the problem of leaving the soil uncovered which leads to erosion, which aggravates the nutrient depletion problem.

jaggederest 6y ago
At least in my experience you plant cover crops there and plow them under at the end. My relatives used field peas. And the four-field system is considered a strict upgrade over the three-field system last I heard, basically just 3 productive fields and 1 planted in cover crops. https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-for-Better-Crops-3rd-Edition/Text-Version/Cover-Crops/Types-of-Cover-Crops https://www.sare.org/Learning-Center/Books/Building-Soils-fo...
- hosh 6y ago
  We can do better than that: - Someone figured out a way to grow comfrey (and other nitrogen fixers) in a separate field with low maintenance to supply mulch material for the main crop, without having to rely on animal manure. - There are people who built their animal barn at the top of a hill and dug swales to transport runoff from manure downward. They plant edibles all along the swale. Once established, low maintenance. - I saw another practice that involved growing grasses, and using grazers and micrograzers to increase fertility in depleted soil. It’s part of an overal system where fences and chicken trailers are used to move grazing around. Some of these practices may not be practical at scale, but that is not the point — these practices work well for decentralized food system

hosh 6y ago

We can do better than that. You can, for example, plant nitrogen fixers directly as a companion plant for the plants that are heavy feeders. (Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)) (But you'd still have to rotate out tomatoes and other nightshade family plants because of accumulated toxins in the soil). There's a way to do this kind of a thing with perennials, and better yet, in the backyard or in the neighborhood garden. That is as local and "farm to table" as you can get.

maire 6y ago

Monoculture is bad for bees even if you rotate every other year.

rorykoehler 6y ago

It’s much better to have a natural environment from a biodiversity perspective