Crop Rotation for Vegetables

Some examples of crop rotation include the following:

Oil Seeds

Oil seeds can be planted in the following way:

1 | Vaeshákha | mid-April to mid-May 2 | Jyaeśt́ha | mid-May to mid-June 3 | Aśádha | mid-June to mid-July 4 | Shrávańa | mid-July to mid-August 5 | Bhádra | mid-August to mid-September 6 | Áshvina | mid-September to mid-October 7 | Kárttika | mid October to mid November 8 | Agrahayańa | mid November to mid December 9 | Pauśa | mid December to mid January 10 | Mágha | mid January to mid February 11 | Phálguna | mid February to mid March 12 | Caetra | mid March to mid April

1. Min-June to mid-Sept: peanut and rainy season sesame in the whole field.
2. Mid-Sept to mid-Oct:

• half the field should be planted with red mustard and linseed
• the other half with yellow mustard and winter sesame. The soil should be properly tilled before the crops are sown. These crops take 4 months to mature.

3. Mid-Jan to mid-April: peanut and late sargujá (an oil seed).
4. Mid-April to mid-June: maize and green gram.

Another oil seed rotation is as follows:

1. Mid-March to mid-June: peanut with sesame and soybean
2. Mid-June to mid-Sept: peanut and rainy season sesame or rainy season soybean.

3. Áshvina, Kárttika, Agraháyańa, Paośa – half the area should be planted in winter sesame with red mustard, and the other half with linseed and yellow mustard.
4. Mágha, Phálguna – sunflower should be planted for 65-80 days, the growing period of the crop, along with green gram.

Summer Vegetables

Plough the soil 8 times:

• 6 times with a tractor
• 2 times with a power tiller.

Cow dung and organic fertilizers can be used, but not NPK (nitrogen, potassium and phosphate) until the plants are about one foot tall and healthy.

If summer eggplant seedlings are transplanted in the month of Phálguna, they will give fruit from Vaeshákha to Bhádra.

Between every 2 eggplants grow:

• summer radish
• summer notei shák
• summer lal shák
• summer varieties of creepers like:
  • cucumber
  • gourd
  • pumpkin
  • green chillies
• spinach
• barbati beans

The yield of the daisy variety of green chilli and the suryamukhi variety of chilli yield is the same. But the yield of the dhani lanka variety of chilli is much greater.

However, the cultivation of dhani lanka is not commercially viable because although it is very hot, it is very small.

Also, the plant grows very large, and this affects the growth of the intermittent plants.

Just as there may be 1 chilli between 2 eggplants, the reverse can also apply.

Between 2 green chilli plants there may be 1 eggplant.

But this intermittent eggplant should be snake-shaped and not round.

The snake-shaped eggplant should be planted as an autumn crop and not as a summer crop.

Between 2 eggplants or 2 green chillies, there may be 1 okra.

In the summer, 2 crops of okra can be produced from Phálguna to Kárttika.

Eggplants must be replaced every 2 years because at the end of this period their productivity declines.

The following system should be used for the crop rotation of summer vegetables:

1. Shrávańa, Bhádra, Áshvina, Kárttika

Plough the field 8 times also.

Plant transplanted autumn eggplant.

Chilli may be grown between two autumn eggplants.

The daisy variety of eggplant is better than the mukta keshi variety.

If any creeping vegetables are planted between 2 eggplants, they must be grown on a platform, otherwise the vegetable plants will be attacked by pests and insects.

2. Agraháyańa

In the month of Agraháyańa, the field may be used for cultivating boro paddy if there is enough water.

Alternately, wheat may be sown.

The prescribed time for sowing wheat is the end of Kárttika, Agraháyańa and up to the 7th of Pauśa, that is, the 21st of December.

Or potato, pulses or winter mustard may be sown. Again, the land can be used for summer vegetables from the month of Phálguna.

If melons are to be grown instead, then the sowing period for both watermelon and musk melon is December, January, February and March. In such a case no winter crop can be cultivated. Melons need sandy soil.

Similar is the case with wax gourd or squat gourd. No other winter crop like wheat, or any other summer vegetable, should be cultivated in the same field as wax gourd.

But it must be remembered that wax gourd requires alluvial soil or soil that is a bit sandy, just like melons and winter vegetables such as winter cucumber, winter gourd, etc.

There may be 1 pumpkin (chal kumŕá variety) between 2 eggplants in Phálguna or Shrávańa.

A sweet made from the chal kumra variety of pumpkin is found mostly in Agra, and is called “petha,” or “murabha” in Bengali.