Crop rotation British Agricultural Revolution. The rotation between arable and ley is sometimes called ley farming. George Washington Carver (1860s–1943) studied crop-rotation methods in the United States, teaching southern farmers to rotate soil-depleting crops like cotton with soil-enriching crops like peanuts and peas. In the Green Revolution of the mid-20th century the traditional practice of crop rotation gave way in some parts of the world to the practice of supplementing the chemical inputs to the soil through topdressing with fertilizers, adding (for example) ammonium nitrate or urea and restoring soil pH with lime. Such practices aimed to increase yields, to prepare soil
Crop yield end of the ancient, wasteful cycle of the three-course system of crop rotation whereby a third of the land lay fallow every year and hence taken out of human food, and animal feed, production. It was to be replaced by the four-course system of crop rotation, devised in England in 1730 by Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend or "Turnip" Townshend during the British Agricultural Revolution, as he was called by early detractors. In the "first year", wheat or oats were planted; in the "second year", barley or oats; in the "third year", clover, rye, rutabaga and/or kale were planted; in