We are increasingly encountering a variety of difficultly to control plant diseases in vegetable fields. One management tool that could be used more widely to help in the control of plant diseases is rotation.
Many diseases build up in the soil when the same crop is grown in the same field year after year.
Rotation can help break this cycle and stop the buildup of disease organisms in the field. To be effective, rotations must be carefully planned. The present crop and all related plants or alternate hosts for the disease must be kept out of the field. Only those crops not susceptible to the disease should be grown there. Different plant diseases will persist in the soil for different lengths of time, so the length of the rotation will vary with the disease being managed.