Organic Crop Production and Crop Rotation
What this domain tests
Domain 5 is the planning domain: designing a rotation that feeds the soil, breaks pest and disease cycles and matches the Cypriot climate - rainfed barley and carob in the drylands, irrigated vegetables, potatoes and vines where water is available. Expect a rotation-design task or a question on organic seed and planting material.
Core rules and concepts
- Rotation principles: alternate plant families, alternate heavy/light feeders, alternate deep/shallow roots, always include a legume, never repeat a family on the same land more than once in 3–4 years.
- Same-family hazards: tomato and potato are both Solanaceae - successive cropping multiplies late blight, root-knot nematodes and volunteer plants. Cucurbits and brassicas follow the same logic.
- N supply: place a legume green manure before the most demanding crop (tomato, potato, brassica).
- Weed and nematode suppression: dense competitive cover crops, marigold (Tagetes) against root-knot nematode, stale seedbed before sowing.
- Propagation material: seed and vegetative material must be organic; when no organic seed of a variety is available, a derogation from the control body or the national database must be obtained first.
- Water and climate fit: choose drought-tolerant species and early maturing varieties for rainfed land; mulch to conserve moisture.
- Plastic mulch is allowed but must be lifted and removed at the end of the crop, not ploughed in.
Worked example
Design a 4-year rotation for 4 ha of irrigated land that must include potato and processing tomato. Reasoning: both are Solanaceae, so they must be separated by at least two years. Year 1: winter vetch green manure, incorporated, then processing tomato (legume N, break from cereals). Year 2: winter barley followed by a summer legume cover or a brassica (break crops, cereal residues for organic matter). Year 3: potato - placed after a grass/brassica break, far from last year's tomato, limiting nematode and blight pressure. Year 4: a low-demand crop such as a cereal/legume mix, or a nematode-suppressing Tagetes cover before returning to tomato. Each block carries a different crop every year and no family returns within three seasons.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating rotation as "different crops" rather than different families and root types.
- Putting tomato after potato because "the irrigation is already there".
- Forgetting the organic seed requirement and assuming any untreated commercial seed is acceptable.
- Leaving plastic mulch in the soil or burning crop residues instead of composting or chopping them.