Monoculture

A MONOCULTURE REFERS to the repeated cultivation of a single crop on an area of land and describes the practice of relying on a population of plants or animals derived from a single genotype or a very narrow genetic base. This implies an agricultural practice without any crop rotation or mixed intercropping. In forestry it refers to planting of single species tree crops instead of encouraging a diverse canopy of trees, so that biodiversity that would provide a suitable habitat for a number of different species cannot be provided. Monoculture is characterized by the absence of diversity and can occur on various scales: a plot of ground, a natural community, a landscape, or a large geographic region. Its correlative, polyculture, indicates that two are more ...