Scheduling a crop rotation program for potato based on some environmental considerations

Scheduling a crop rotation program for potato based on some environmental considerations





Introduction

Potato, as the fourth most important food crop in the world after rice, wheat and maize, play a crucial role in global food security. Monoculture of potato is an important obstacle for achieving high tuber yield. In other words, when potato is successively planted, continuous cropping is occurred, resulting in poor growth and development and low tuber yield and quality. Crop rotation, defining as growing a series of unrelated crops sequentially over time on the same land, is an agronomical method for increasing yield. For achieving positive effects of crop rotation, crops involved in rotation must be carefully selected. Impacts of crop rotation on potato yield and quality may be a function of the rotational crops. To increase the yield of potato tuber, plants including oat, fava bean, barley, potato, maize, canola, alfalfa and wheat have been suggested to be in crop rotation with potato. However, in the arrangement of these plants in crop rotations, only the increase in tuber production has been considered and the environmental impacts of these plants have not been taken into account. Therefore, in this study it has been tried to find out and suggest the best plants (among the eight plants whose positive effects on the yield of potato tubers have been confirmed) for crop rotation with potato (in a four-year period) based on their impacts on human health, ecosystems, and environmental resources.



Materials and Methods

Impact analysis of crops on human health, ecosystems and resources was carried out using SimaPro vr 9.5.0. Method used for comparison was ReCiPe 2016 endpoint (H) V1.08/world (2010) H/A/characterization. The environmental damage data of plants was calculated based on the production of one kg of plants.



Results and Discussion

Regarding human health, canola caused the greatest damage followed by wheat and fava bean. The lowest damaged belonged to alfalfa which was 93.18% lower than that of canola. Canola also had highest negative impact on ecosystems followed by fava bean and oat. The results revealed that the impact of all eight crops on resources was negligible (lower than 1.0 mPt). However, canola damage to resources was higher than that of the rest crops. In general, regarding all three damage categories, canola is the most unsuitable plant for crop rotation with potatoes, while the lowest damage belonged to alfalfa, oats and potato. Therefore, a four-year crop rotation based on the lowest damage to human health, ecosystems and environmental resources can be suggested as follow: Potato- alfalfa- potato- oat.



Conclusion

Therefore, a four-year crop rotation based on the lowest damage to human health, ecosystems and environmental resources can be suggested as follow: Potato- alfalfa- potato- oat.



Key words: ecosystems, environmental resources, human health, tuber yield





Introduction

Potato, as the fourth most important food crop in the world after rice, wheat and maize, play a crucial role in global food security. Monoculture of potato is an important obstacle for achieving high tuber yield. In other words, when potato is successively planted, continuous cropping is occurred, resulting in poor growth and development and low tuber yield and quality. Crop rotation, defining as growing a series of unrelated crops sequentially over time on the same land, is an agronomical method for increasing yield. For achieving positive effects of crop rotation, crops involved in rotation must be carefully selected. Impacts of crop rotation on potato yield and quality may be a function of the rotational crops. To increase the yield of potato tuber, plants including oat, fava bean, barley, potato, maize, canola, alfalfa and wheat have been suggested to be in crop rotation with potato. However, in the arrangement of these plants in crop rotations, only the increase in tuber production has been considered and the environmental impacts of these plants have not been taken into account. Therefore, in this study it has been tried to find out and suggest the best plants (among the eight plants whose positive effects on the yield of potato tubers have been confirmed) for crop rotation with potato (in a four-year period) based on their impacts on human health, ecosystems, and environmental resources.

Materials and Methods

Impact analysis of crops on human health, ecosystems and resources was carried out using SimaPro vr 9.5.0. Method used for comparison was ReCiPe 2016 endpoint (H) V1.08/world (2010) H/A/characterization. The environmental damage data of plants was calculated based on the production of one kg of plants.