Polyculture is the form of agriculture which is totally opposite to monoculture. In polyculture, a farmer grows multiple types of crops in his field simultaneously to avoid space congestion. There are many techniques associated with the polyculture such as beneficial weeds, crop rotation, intercropping, etc. A farmer who indulges himself in polyculture has to face many problems and has to labour hard in order to grow multiple crops in his field. Polyculture, in comparison to monoculture, has many advantages and is much better than it. Annuals and perennials monocultures are avoided by most of the farmers in the world nowadays. To a certain extent, monoculture farming is becoming a great danger for the ecosystem and the atmosphere in which we live. Traditional farmers are using every possible method to increase the production of the crops at a minimum cost. The cost effective techniques are very helpful and beneficial for the farmers. The farmers use all the basic inputs available to them to yield their crop and make their livelihood. For instance, nowadays crop rotation is one of the major techniques used by the farmers. In crop rotation technique, two dissimilar crops are grown and the latter crop follows the previous one. The nutrients left in the soil due to the first crop are used by the second crop and the second crop grows without any problem. Legumes and some cereals are the best examples of the crop rotation technique.
Another major technique used by the farmers is multiple cropping. This technique becomes very handy in growing good quality crops with high yielding variety. It refers to the growing of two or more than two crops simultaneously in one field. The Indian agriculture industry is very vast and it has been in the last few years that the farmers have grown more than 20 crops at a time in a single field without any difficulty. It is true that it needs a lot of labour to practice multiple cropping but at the end the result is good and satisfactory. The pests living in one type of crops can help the other crop to grow and so on and so forth. Each crop helps it counterpart to grow and the organisms living in them allows the other crop to grow effectively. Apart from multiple cropping, inter-cropping is also one of the useful technique used by the farmers of the world nowadays. Inter-cropping resembles to the technique in which the second crop is grown between the spaces left amidst the main crop grown in the field. In this technique there is no space left and the whole field is used without leaving any space. The medicinal plants can be grown in between the cotton crops and the whole field comes into the use and the farmers benefit through this without any doubt. The advantage of polyculture can be seen in developing an ecosystem of its kind within a field. It is also useful in the sustainable development of the crops within an ample amount of time.
The practice of culturing many species within a single field resembles to polyculture and it is much ahead than its counterpart- monoculture. Apart from agriculture industry, polyculture is also used in the aquatic life. The aquaculture is also dependent on the polyculture to some extent. For instance, by growing seaweed with other fish species the scientists makes it helpful for the fish to survive. The oysters in the sea act as a filtering device and they makes full use of the waste secreted by the fishes in the sea water. The oysters help in cleaning the environment and the surroundings by utilizing the waste produced by the fishes and the ecosystem remains intact without any nutrient pollution in the sea. The impact of the harmful bacteria is minimized and the ecosystem remains healthy and clean. So in totality polyculture is much ahead of monoculture. By the use of polyculture the under-developed countries are becoming developed. The use of new techniques in the field of agriculture and aquaculture has given the boost to the economy of many countries. With the help of polyculture farmers can grow multiple crops in their field and it also saves time and space. The farmers benefit a lot with these practices and they are practicing these techniques on a daily basis.
It is certainly true that the use of polyculture has made a disastrous change in the sustainable development of the species of crops. Crop-rotation and multiple-cropping techniques are becoming more popular with the coming generation of the farmers. The value of the time is important in today’s farming industries and if one has to develop a good economy than the agriculture industry should come forward to show its worth. So, the use of polyculture is very useful for the economical purpose of various countries.