Talk:Monoculture
Anthere,
Thank you for your excellent edits to this page.
However, I did note that your removed the statement that the term "monoculture" is pejorative. I believe that it is, based on the fact that I have not encountered any nonpejorative use of it either in literature or in spoken English. Those who use growing techniques involving a single-species crop do not use the term.
Kat 17:28 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Interesting. You probably are right more than me. That is interesting because it is a very commonly used word in french, and not pejorative in the least. Curious.
Officially, we use "monoculture" for one species culture, "multiculture" for several species but no animals, and "polyculture-élevage" for a farm dealing with crops and cattle/pigs/sheeps...official terminology, used by farmers as well as govt agencies or corporations.
Which words do you use then ? In particular, which word do you use to describe monoculture if monoculture is not the one used ?
The term continuous corn is used where corn (maize) is planted more than one year in a row in the same location. Permanent pasture is used for pasture areas that are not plowed down and planted to grain crops periodically.
These are the only two land uses that are common in my area that do not involve periodic rotation (except perhaps timber production, orchards, and other woody agriculture).
A farm that raises only grain (no animals) is usually called either a "cash grain farm", "cash crop farm", or sometimes just "crop farm" or "grain farm". Grain farms that raise only corn are rare, since the practice is usually accompanied by dairy cattle.
There is no special term in common use for farms that have both livestock and grain.
There are some examples of the terminology in the farm business management page at http://www.mgt.org or at http://www.nass.usda.gov
In my area, Corn-soybean rotations are the most common, followed by corn-soybeans-oats-alfalfa, where the alfalfa is underseeded with the oats and harvested for several years following the seeding year. Some operators leave out the beans and rotate corn-oats-alflafa. There is some continuous corn, mainly by dairy operators that need the silage, and there are a few corn-soybeans-oats rotations used for erosion control on sensitive sites. There is some permanent pasture and some more or less permanent grass hay, and a little bit of rotational grazing on alfalfa that is in rotation with corn and soybeans. There is some sweet corn, green peas, and edible green beans that are grown for commercial canning and freezing, that is fit into the rotation wherever it works.
Areas with less rainfall are more wheat-oriented, and there are a variety of three year and four year rotations used for that.
Kat 18:17 13 Jun 2003 (UTC)