ABSTRACT
Requirements imposed by government farm policies, shifts in the economics of farming practices, and the public's concern in protecting the environment and conserving our natural resources have created a resurgence of interest in two of the oldest agricultural practices known. These two practices, using cover crops and crop rotations, have been recognized as good management practices since ancient times. This chapter reviews the general principles of crop rotation and cover crops and discusses their advantages and disadvantages in the context of their coordination into current agricultural systems. It outlines future research that will facilitate wider adoption of these practices. A systematic or recurrent sequence of crops grown over a number of cropping seasons is a common definition of crop rotation. Certain crops, however, have an economic advantage over other crops within a particular area. This economic advantage may be related to environmental adaptation, variations in regional inputs necessary to produce the crop, and government policies and market influences.
