About Lesson
Components of organic farming
- Land
- Soil and water
- Crop and animal
- Renewable energy source
Important terminology
Land: That part of the surface of lithosphere which is not usually covered with water and forms the total natural and cultural environment with which production takes place.
Land characteristic: An attribute of land that can be measured or estimated, and which can be employed as a means of describing land qualities or distinguishing between land units of differing suitability for use.
Reclamation (land): The operation or process of changing the condition or characteristics of land which cannot be utilized to its full potential otherwise, viz. Irrigation of land, drainage of swamp or waterlogged land, gypsum application to alkali soils, liming of acid soils etc.
Soil: A collection of natural bodies developed in the unconsolidated mineral and organic material on the immediate surface of the earth that serves as a natural medium for the growth of land plants and has properties due to the effects of climate and living matter acting upon parent material, as conditioned by topography over a period of time.
Soil (mature): A soil which has reached the full development to be expected under existing weathering and biological processes.
Soil conservation: The preservation of soil against deterioration and loss by using it within its capabilities and applying the conservation practices needed for its protection and improvement.
Soil management: The sum total of all tillage operations, cropping practices, fertilizer, lime and other treatments, conducted on or applied to a soil for the production of plants.
Crop intensification: It is the ratio between total cropped area and actual net cultivated area expressed in percent (%).
CI = (Total cropped area in a year)/(Net cultivated area) × 100
Multiple cropping: Intensification of cropping in time and space dimensions. Growing two or more crops in the same field in a year.
Monoculture: A cropping system in which the same crop is grown year after year in the same field
Simultaneous poly culture: Simultaneous growth of two or more useful plants on the same plot. It includes mixed cropping, intercropping, interculture, interplanting and relay planting.
Interculture: Arable crops grown below perennial crops.
Interplanting: All types of seeding or planting a crop into a growing stand. It is used especially for annual crops grown under stands of perennial crops.
