Monoculture and Diversity Team Pickles Production Owner and proprietor Jim Giles

What is Monoculture In agriculture, "monoculture" describes the practice of planting crops with the same patterns of growth resulting from genetic similarity. Examples include Wheat fields or Apple orchards or Grape vineyards. These cultivars have uniform growing requirements and habit resulting in greater yields on less land because planting, maintenance (including pest control) and harvesting can be standardized. This standardization results in less waste and loss from inefficient harvesting and planting. It also is beneficial because a crop can be tailor planted for a location that has special problems - like soil salt or drought or a short growing season.

Diversity A type of agricultural diversity is called Polyculture. Polyculture is agriculture using multiple crops in the same space, in imitation of the diversity of natural ecosystems, and avoiding large stands of single crops, or monoculture. It includes crop rotation, multi-cropping, intercropping, companion planting, beneficial weeds, and alley cropping. The diversity of crops avoids the susceptibility of monocultures to disease. The greater variety of crops provides habitat for more species, increasing local biodiversity. This is one example of Reconciliation Ecology, or accommodating biodiversity within human landscapes. Polyculture is one of the principles of permaculture.

Advantages of Monoculture Some of the advantages of monoculture would be that when one of the crops is ready to be harvested then the likelihood is that the other plants would also be ready for harvesting. Also by having all the same types of plan then you are able to make an estimate what kind of yield you will get overall based on one of the crops

Disadvantages of Monoculture Some of the disadvantages of monoculture is that if there is one of the plants that is affected by a disease then the likelihood is that the other plants will be affected by this disease.

James Giles