Monoculture is the agricultural Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as practice of producing or growing one single crop over a wide area. It is widely used in modern industrial agriculture Industrial agriculture is a form of modern farming that refers to the industrialized production of livestock, poultry, fish, and crops. The methods of industrial agriculture are technoscientific, economic, and political. They include innovation in agricultural machinery and farming methods, genetic technology, techniques for achieving economies of and its implementation has allowed for large harvests from minimal labor. However, monocultures can lead to the quicker spread of diseases, where a uniform crop is susceptible to a pathogen. 'Crop monoculture' is the practice of growing the same crop year after year.[1]
The term is frequently borrowed for other uses, such as raising one species of livestock in a factory farm, or even in fields other than agriculture to describe any group dominated by a single variety, e.g. in the field of musicology to describe the dominance of the American and British music-industries in pop music Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple love songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is, or in the field of computer science to describe a group of computers all running identical software.
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Land Use
A potato fieldThe term is mostly used in agriculture Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as and 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 A cultivar is a cultivated variety of a plant that has been deliberately selected for specific desirable characteristics . When propagated correctly, the plants of a particular cultivar retain their special characteristics have uniform growing requirements and habits 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.[citation needed]
Monoculture produces great yields by utilizing plants' abilities to maximize growth under less pressure from other species and more uniform plant structure. Uniform cultivars are able to better use available light and space, but also have a greater drain on soil nutrients. In the last 40 years modern practices such as monoculture planting and the use of synthesized fertilizers have greatly reduced the amount of land needed to produce much higher yielding crops.
Forestry
In forestry Forestry is the art and science of managing forests, tree plantations, and related natural resources. The main goal of forestry is to create and implement systems that allow forests to continue a sustainable continuation of environmental supplies and services. The challenge of forestry is to create systems that are socially accepted while, monoculture refers to the planting of one species of tree.[2] Monoculture plantings provide great yields and more effective growth and harvesting than natural stands of trees. Single species stands of trees are often the natural way trees grow, but the stands show a diversity in tree sizes, with dead trees mixed with mature and young trees. In forestry, monoculture stands that are planted and harvested as a unit provide limited resources for wildlife that depend on dead trees and openings, since all the trees are the same size; they are most often also harvested by clear cutting, which drastically alters the habitat. Also the mechanical harvesting of trees can compact soils, which effects the under story growth.[3] Single species planting of trees also are more vulnerable when infected with a pathogen, or are attacked by insects,[4] and by adverse environmental conditions.[5]
However, at least one study from Canada's boreal forest suggests that the practice of planting single or low numbers of tree species over large holdings of recently logged forests, coupled with spraying herbicides for commercially undesirable species, does not generally create tree monocultures.[6]
Lawns and animals
Examples of monoculture include lawns A lawn is an area of aesthetic and recreational land planted with grasses or other low durable plants, which usually are maintained at a lower and consistent height. Low ornamental meadows in natural landscaping styles are a contemporary option of a lawn. In recreational contexts, the specialised names turf, pitch, field or green may be used, and most field crops Agriculture is the production of food and goods through farming. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of human civilization, with the husbandry of domesticated animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more densely populated and stratified societies. The study of agriculture is known as, such as wheat or corn. The term is also used where a single species of farm animal is raised in large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Disease
Monocultures used in agriculture are usually single strains that have been bred for high yield and resistant to certain common diseases. Since all plants in a monoculture are genetically similar, if a disease strikes to which they have no resistance, it can destroy entire populations of crops. Polyculture, which is the mixing of different crops, has natural variation and a likelihood that one or more of the crops will be resistant to any particular pathogen. Studies have shown planting a mixture of crop strains in the same field to be effective at combating disease.[7]
Ending monocultures grown under disease conditions by introducing crop diversity has greatly increased yields. The planting of several varieties of rice Rice is the seed of the monocot plant Oryza sativa. As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East and South Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies. It is the grain with the second-highest worldwide production, after maize in the same field in China has increased yields by 89%, largely because of a dramatic (94%) decrease in the incidence of disease, which made pesticides A pesticide is any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest. A pesticide may be a chemical substance, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest. Pests include insects, plant pathogens, weeds, molluscs, birds, mammals, fish, nematodes (roundworms), redundant.[8]
There is currently a great deal of international worry about the wheat leaf rust fungus, that has already decimated wheat crops in Uganda and Kenya, and is starting to make inroads into Asia as well.[9] As much of the worlds wheat crops are very genetically similar following the Green Revolution Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between 1943 and the late 1970s, that increased industrialized agriculture production in many developing nations, the impacts of such diseases threaten agricultural production worldwide.
Polyculture
Main article: 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 croppingThe environmental movement The environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues seeks to change popular culture by redefining the "perfect lawn" to be something other than a turf monoculture, and seeks agricultural policy Agricultural policy describes a set of laws relating to domestic agriculture and imports of foreign agricultural products. Governments usually implement agricultural policies with the goal of achieving a specific outcome in the domestic agricultural product markets. Outcomes can involve, for example, a guaranteed supply level, price stability, that provides greater encouragement for more diverse cropping systems. Local food Local food or the local food movement is a "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies - one in which sustainable food production, processing, distribution, and consumption is integrated to enhance the economic, environmental and social health of a particular place" and is considered to be a part of the systems may also encourage growing multiple species and a wide variety of crops at the same time and same place. Heirloom gardening has come about largely as a reaction against monocultures in agriculture.
See also
- Crop diversity
- Biodiversity Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or on an entire planet. Biodiversity is one measure of the health of biological systems. Life on Earth today consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The year 2010 was declared the International Year of Biodiversity
- Heirloom gardening
- Neglected and Underutilized Crops
- Seed bank
- Three Sisters The Three Sisters are the three main agricultural crops of some Native American groups in North America: squash, maize, and climbing beans
- Underutilized crops Neglected and Underutilized crops are plant species that are used traditionally for their food, fibre, fodder, oil or medicinal properties. They have an under-exploited potential to contribute to food security, nutrition, health, income generation and environmental services. They have often been overlooked by scientific research and by development
- Genetically modified organism A genetically modified organism or genetically engineered organism (GEO) is an organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. These techniques, generally known as recombinant DNA technology, use DNA molecules from different sources, which are combined into one molecule to create a new set of genes. This DNA
External links
References
- ^ http://www.cropscience.org.au/icsc2004/symposia/2/1/1128_cookrj.htm
- ^ http://www.ag-network-chile.net/Monoculture%20Forestry.htm
- ^ http://www.umich.edu/~nre301/forestry-02.doc
- ^ Richardson, Edited by David M. (2000). Ecology and biogeography of Pinus. Cambridge, U.K.. pp. 371. doi A digital object identifier is a character string used to uniquely identify an electronic document or other object. Metadata about the object is stored in association with the DOI name and this metadata may include a location, such as a URL, where the object can be found. The DOI for a document is permanent, whereas its location and other metadata:10.2277/. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 9780521789103
- ^ http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/forestry.html
- ^ http://www.springerlink.com/content/w315744822422017/
- ^ http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6797/abs/406718a0.html
- ^ http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Rice-Diversity-Yield.htm
- ^ Vidal, John (2009-03-19). "'Stem rust' fungus threatens global wheat harvest". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/19/rust-fungus-global-wheat-crops. Retrieved 2010-05-13.
Categories: Agricultural terminology | Industrial agriculture | Sociology Sociology is the study of social rules and processes that bind and separate people not only as individuals, but as members of voluntary associations, professional bodies, groups, and institutions | Pollination
Benzinga
... the antibiotics used to suppress the spread of disease in an unhealthy monoculture setting are detrimental to the animals and those who eat them, ...
