Agriculture
Monoculture is the agricultural practice of repetitively planting a single plant species rather than growing a variety of types of plants.
There has been considerable debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of monoculture agriculture. This type of plant production is a system in which a single plant species, typically one producing grain (such as corn, wheat, or rice), forage (such as alfalfa or clover), or fiber (such as cotton), is grown in the same field on a repetitive basis, to the exclusion of all other species. In its most extreme version, a single variety of a plant species is grown, and all plants are virtually identical to one another.
Monoculture can be contrasted with other agricultural production practices, such as multiple cropping (in which sequential monoculture crops are grown in the same year) or intercropping (in which two or more different crops are grown at the same time and place). Monoculture can also apply to perennial produce systems, such as fruiting trees, citrus crops, tea, coffee, and rubber trees.
Advantages
Monocultures are unnatural ecological occurrences. They are maintained through the use of resources such as labor, energy, and capital (fertilizers, chemicals, and so on). Left to itself, a monoculture crop will quickly revert to being a mixed plant community. However, monoculture agriculture has several advantages that caused its widespread adoption from the moment agriculture began.
Monocultures allow agriculturalists to focus their energy on producing a single crop best adapted to a particular environment or to a particular market. For example, a premium is paid for white corn, used in making snack foods.
Monoculture is an appropriate agricultural strategy to optimize crop yield per unit of land when either temperature or water conditions limit the growing season. Monoculture agriculture lends itself to mechanization, an important consideration when labor is expensive relative to energy costs.
Consequently, monoculture agriculture in the United States has developed in concert with the resources required to support it?markets, credit, chemicals, seed, and machinery?and with the social conditions that have caused the United States to change from a rural to a largely urban and suburban population.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of monoculture are numerous. There are apparent limits to the increase in crop yields brought about by newhybrid seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Yield increases in monoculture agriculture have diminished since the 1980?s.
There is an economy of scale at which farm size becomes too small to permit effective mechanization or for which insufficient markets exist for reliance on a single crop. Focus on production of a single crop may lead to unbalanced diets and nutritional deficiencies in agricultural communities where no external supplies of produce are available.
More important, monoculture crops are biologically unstable, and considerable effort must be made to keep other plants and pests out. When every plant under cultivation is the same, these systems are inherently susceptible to natural events (storms, drought, and wind damage) and to biological invasions by insects and plant pathogens. The classic example of overreliance on monoculture was the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1850).
The famine was instigated by natural climatic conditions that allowed the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans (potato late blight) to destroy successive potato crops in a population too impoverished to afford other food staples that were available.
- Some Terminology Related To Multiple Cropping
Multiple Cropping ( sugarcane with vegetable )AGRO-FORESTRY: when are grown along with the agricultural crops ( annual crop ) and livestock, then it is called agroforestry. Example mango with rice. PRECISION AGRICULTURE: It is a concept of agriculture...
- Cloning Of Plants
Plant cloning is the production of a cell, cell component, or plant that is genetically identical to the unit or individual from which it was derived. The term?clone? is derived from the Greek word klon, meaning a slip or twig. Hence, it is an appropriate...
- High-yield Crops
High-yield CropsHigh-yield agricultural crops are those that have been bred, genetically modified, or fertilized to increase their production yields. The health and well-being of the world?s growing population are largely dependent on the ability of the...
- Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable AgricultureSustainable agriculture is the practice of growing and harvesting crops in a manner that will allow the land to return to its pre cultivation state. It seeks to maintain the quality of air, soil, and water resources for future human...
- Intensive Farming With A Climate-friendly Touch: Farming/woodland Mix Increases Yields
In the world of agriculture, climate protection and intensive farming are generally assumed to be a contradiction in terms. At Technische Universität München (TUM), however, scientists have come up with a new land development concept that could change...
Agriculture
Monoculture
 |
| Monoculture |
There has been considerable debate regarding the advantages and disadvantages of monoculture agriculture. This type of plant production is a system in which a single plant species, typically one producing grain (such as corn, wheat, or rice), forage (such as alfalfa or clover), or fiber (such as cotton), is grown in the same field on a repetitive basis, to the exclusion of all other species. In its most extreme version, a single variety of a plant species is grown, and all plants are virtually identical to one another.
Monoculture can be contrasted with other agricultural production practices, such as multiple cropping (in which sequential monoculture crops are grown in the same year) or intercropping (in which two or more different crops are grown at the same time and place). Monoculture can also apply to perennial produce systems, such as fruiting trees, citrus crops, tea, coffee, and rubber trees.
Advantages
Monocultures are unnatural ecological occurrences. They are maintained through the use of resources such as labor, energy, and capital (fertilizers, chemicals, and so on). Left to itself, a monoculture crop will quickly revert to being a mixed plant community. However, monoculture agriculture has several advantages that caused its widespread adoption from the moment agriculture began.
 |
 |
Monocultures allow agriculturalists to focus their energy on producing a single crop best adapted to a particular environment or to a particular market. For example, a premium is paid for white corn, used in making snack foods.
 |
| Monoculture field |
Consequently, monoculture agriculture in the United States has developed in concert with the resources required to support it?markets, credit, chemicals, seed, and machinery?and with the social conditions that have caused the United States to change from a rural to a largely urban and suburban population.
Disadvantages
The disadvantages of monoculture are numerous. There are apparent limits to the increase in crop yields brought about by newhybrid seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. Yield increases in monoculture agriculture have diminished since the 1980?s.
There is an economy of scale at which farm size becomes too small to permit effective mechanization or for which insufficient markets exist for reliance on a single crop. Focus on production of a single crop may lead to unbalanced diets and nutritional deficiencies in agricultural communities where no external supplies of produce are available.
 |
| wheat field |
The famine was instigated by natural climatic conditions that allowed the plant pathogen Phytophthora infestans (potato late blight) to destroy successive potato crops in a population too impoverished to afford other food staples that were available.
- Some Terminology Related To Multiple Cropping
Multiple Cropping ( sugarcane with vegetable )AGRO-FORESTRY: when are grown along with the agricultural crops ( annual crop ) and livestock, then it is called agroforestry. Example mango with rice. PRECISION AGRICULTURE: It is a concept of agriculture...
- Cloning Of Plants
Plant cloning is the production of a cell, cell component, or plant that is genetically identical to the unit or individual from which it was derived. The term?clone? is derived from the Greek word klon, meaning a slip or twig. Hence, it is an appropriate...
- High-yield Crops
High-yield CropsHigh-yield agricultural crops are those that have been bred, genetically modified, or fertilized to increase their production yields. The health and well-being of the world?s growing population are largely dependent on the ability of the...
- Sustainable Agriculture
Sustainable AgricultureSustainable agriculture is the practice of growing and harvesting crops in a manner that will allow the land to return to its pre cultivation state. It seeks to maintain the quality of air, soil, and water resources for future human...
- Intensive Farming With A Climate-friendly Touch: Farming/woodland Mix Increases Yields
In the world of agriculture, climate protection and intensive farming are generally assumed to be a contradiction in terms. At Technische Universität München (TUM), however, scientists have come up with a new land development concept that could change...