The Old Rotation is a

soil fertility Soil fertility refers to the ability of soil to sustain agricultural plant growth, i.e. to provide plant habitat and result in sustained and consistent yields of high quality.

experiment on the

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

campus in

Auburn, Alabama Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama, with a 2020 population of 76,143. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a population o ...

. The Old Rotation experiment, which started in 1896, is the third-oldest ongoing field crop experiment in the United States and the oldest continuous

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus ''Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor perce ...

experiment in the world. It was the first experiment to show that a cotton/

legume A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...

crop rotation Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant ...

would allow soil to support a cotton crop indefinitely. The Old Rotation is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

History

For much of the latter part of the 19th century, cotton yields in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

suffered declines caused by planting the same crop on the same land year after year, a process which caused significant soil nutrient loss. In 1896, Professor J. F. Duggar of the Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College set up the Old Rotation experiment on a one-acre (1,600 m²) plot of land one mile (1.6 km) south of the campus to test whether soil nutrient levels could be maintained by growing a crop of

legumes A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock fo ...

on the same land as cotton, but in the winter months when cotton doesn't grow. This rotation of cotton and soybeans has continued uninterrupted since. In addition to the cotton/legume rotation, additional rotations have been added in adjacent plots consisting of a cotton/corn, cotton/corn/legume and cotton/corn/legume/soybean rotation. It became evident within a few years that adding the winter legume crop as a rotation was sufficient to restore adequate nutrients to the soil to maintain a yearly cotton crop indefinitely.

Experiment

The Old Rotation consists of 13 plots of six planting systems: * A

control Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Control, an element of management accounting * Comptroller (or controller), a senior financial officer in an organization * Controllin ...

test where cotton is planted without rotation or

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

* Cotton rotated with winter legumes but not fertilized * Cotton just fertilized * Cotton rotated with corn and winter legumes * Cotton rotated with corn, winter legumes, and fertilizer * Cotton rotated with corn, winter legumes, and soybeans After 110 years of continuous plantings, cotton yields remain high for the rotated plots, producing nearly three times the yield of the unrotated plots.

Miscellaneous

The Old Rotation is located adjacent to the

Donald E. Davis Arboretum The Donald E. Davis Arboretum, in Auburn, Alabama, United States, is a public native plants museum, and botanical arboretum with educational facilities, event spaces, and a conservation program. Its grounds, covering 13.5 acres (4.5 hectares) of ...

on Lem Morrison Drive in Auburn. The Rotation was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 14, 1988.

Photo gallery

Image:OldRotation2.JPG, Image:OldRotation3.JPG, Image:TheOldRotation4.JPG, Image:OldRotation5.JPG,

References

*Elstein, David (2003). ''ARS improves yields in 100-year-old experiment; the 106th cotton crop grown on the Old Rotation—the world's oldest cotton experiment''. ''Agricultural Research'', May 2003. *Logue, Mickey & Simms, Jack (1996). ''Auburn: A Pictorial History of the Loveliest Village, Revised''. Auburn, Ala. {{National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Auburn, Alabama National Register of Historic Places in Lee County, Alabama Auburn University Alabama Cooperative Extension System Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama

History

Experiment

Miscellaneous

Photo gallery

See also

References