Vegetable Crop Rotation

alternation of vegetables grown in special facilities (hothouse, hotbed, greenhouse, or heated ground) during a single year. Crop rotation in hotbeds is also called sash rotation; in hothouses, greenhouses, and heated ground it is called metrooborot (the rotation of meters or plots of land).

A vegetable crop rotation consists of several rotations (first, second, and so forth) of crops that succeed each other. It is used for each facility or group of similar facilities separately. A crop rotation is planned in accordance with the need to grow a certain number of seedlings for open ground by a given time and the need to obtain the maximum yield of vegetables (at the lowest cost) per unit of area during an entire year, and especially before the vegetables are brought to and after they are brought from the open ground. In choosing the vegetables to be grown at different times of the year, account is taken of the population’s requirements, biological characteristics of the crops, microclimate in the facilities, and economic efficiency of growing the plants.

Plans for a crop rotation are designed to make efficient use of the space in the special facilities. This includes planting of companion crops (vegetables grown between the rows of other crops for more productive use of the ground—for example, lettuce, dill, and spinach grown between rows of root crops), special preparation of the seeds (allowing them to germinate, treatment of plants with growth stimulants) and planting stock (additional growing of bulbs, root crops), selection of special hothouse and hotbed plant varieties, maturing of vegetables in fall and forcing of vegetables in winter, and growing of flowers, mushrooms, and so forth in some hothouses in winter.