Monoculture is th /e agricultural practice of producing or growing a single crop or plant species over a wide area and for a large number of consecutive years. It is widely used in modern industrial agriculture and its implementation has allowed for large harvests from minimal labour.
Monocultures can lead to the quicker spread of pests and diseases, where a uniform crop is susceptible to a pathogen. 'Crop monoculture' is the practice of growing the same crop year after year.
The term is frequently borrowed for other uses, such as raising one species of livestock in a farm, or even in fields other than agriculture to describe any group dominated by a single variety, e.g. in the field of musicology to describe the dominance of the American and British music-industries in Western pop music, or in the field of computer science to describe a group of computers all running identical software.
Land
use
The term is mostly used in agriculture
and describes the practice of planting crops with the same patterns of growth
resulting from genetic similarity. Examples include wheat fields or apple
orchards or grape vineyards. These cultivars
have uniform growing requirements and habits resulting in greater yields on
less land because planting, maintenance (including pest control) and harvesting
can be standardized. This standardization results in less waste and loss from
inefficient harvesting and planting. It also is beneficial because a crop can
be tailor planted for a location that has special problems - like soil salt or
drought or a short growing season.
Monoculture produces great yields by
utilizing plants' abilities to maximize growth under less pressure from other
species and more uniform plant structure. Uniform cultivars are able to better
use available light and space, but also have a greater drain on soil nutrients.
In the last 40 years modern practices such as monoculture planting and the use
of synthesized fertilizers have greatly reduced the amount of land needed to
produce much higher yielding crops.
A huge problem with growing any crop in a monoculture is that once the land has
been used to agriculture for a single species, soil fertility diminishes
greatly.
Forestry
In forestry,
monoculture refers to the planting of one species of tree.
Monoculture plantings provide great yields and more
efficient harvesting than natural stands of trees. Single species stands of
trees are often the natural way trees grow, but the stands show a diversity in
tree sizes, with dead trees mixed with mature and young trees. In forestry,
monoculture stands that are planted and harvested as a unit provide limited
resources for wildlife that depend on dead trees and openings, since all the trees
are the same size; they are most often harvested by clear cutting, which
drastically alters the habitat. The mechanical harvesting of trees can compact
soils, which can adversely affect understory growth.
Single species planting of trees also are more vulnerable when infected with a
pathogen, or are attacked by insects,
and by adverse environmental conditions.
Lawns
and animals
Examples of monoculture include lawns and most field crops, such as
wheat or corn. The term is also used where a single species of farm animal is
raised in large-scale concentrated
animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Disease
Monocultures used in agriculture are
usually single strains that have been bred for high yield and resistant to
certain common diseases. Since all plants in a monoculture are genetically
similar, if a disease strikes to which they have no resistance, it can destroy
entire populations of crops. Polyculture, which is the mixing of different
crops, has natural variation and a likelihood that one or more of the crops
will be resistant to any particular pathogen. Studies have shown planting a
mixture of crop strains in the same field to be effective at combating disease.
Ending monocultures grown under disease conditions by introducing crop
diversity has greatly increased yields. In one study in China, the planting of
several varieties of rice in the same field increased yields of non-resistant strains
by 89% compared to non-resistant strains grown in monoculture, largely because
of a dramatic (94%) decrease in the incidence of disease, making pesticides
less necessary.
There is currently a great deal of international worry about the wheat leaf rust
fungus, that has already decimated wheat crops in Uganda and Kenya, and is
starting to make inroads into Asia as well.
As much of the worlds wheat crops are very genetically similar following the Green Revolution,
the impacts of such diseases threaten agricultural production worldwide.
Polyculture
The environmental movement seeks to change popular culture by redefining the
"perfect lawn" to be something other than a turf monoculture, and
seeks agricultural policy that provides greater encouragement for more diverse
cropping systems. Local food systems may also encourage growing multiple species and a wide
variety of crops at the same time and same place. Heirloom gardening has come about largely as a reaction against monocultures
in agriculture.
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