Monoculture and Diversity

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Monoculture and Diversity

• Team Pickles Production
• Owner and proprietor Jim Giles

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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James Giles