Field management
Rotation breach: cotton after cotton, grain after grain
A rotation breach means the same crop is sown on a field year after year beyond what is agronomically acceptable: cotton after cotton or grain after grain. Continuous cotton builds up the Verticillium wilt pathogen in the soil, depletes nutrients, increases salinity and lowers soil organic matter. The result is lower yield and degraded soil.
Crops: Cotton, Wheat
When it is dangerous
The risk does not depend on crop stage – it is assessed between seasons, over several years of field history. A second year in a row with the same crop is a preliminary signal, a third year a confident one. It matters most in the Aral Sea basin, with its long history of cotton monoculture.
Causes
- Cotton or cereals grown without changing the crop
- No rotation plan on the farm
- State procurement orders tying a crop to a field
Signs on the field
- The same crop on the field for several years in a row
- Verticillium wilt in cotton, which blocks the plant vascular system
- Falling yield and poorer soil on the field
How ClusterOS notices it
ClusterOS identifies the crop on the field in each season from Sentinel-2 optical and Sentinel-1 radar images and compares seasons in the field history since 2019. Multi-year crop identification from imagery is still in development. Errors add up: even if the classifier is rarely wrong in a single year, the chance of at least one error over four years is much higher, and on small fields crops mix within a pixel. So this signal should be confirmed with farm records or spot checks in the field.
What to do
- Compare the crops on the field over recent years with farm records
- Draw up a rotation plan and alternate cotton and cereals with other crops
- Consider a short rotation of cotton with maize, which suppressed Verticillium wilt in Xinjiang
- On cotton-after-cotton fields, watch for signs of Verticillium wilt
Questions
What is wrong with growing cotton after cotton?
The Verticillium wilt pathogen builds up in the soil, nutrients are depleted, salinity increases, and soil organic matter and microbial life decline. This lowers yield and damages the soil for years.
Can a rotation breach be seen from space?
Yes, if the crop is identified in each season from several years of imagery. Identification errors add up from year to year, so the result is checked against farm records and with spot checks in the field.
How common was cotton monoculture in Uzbekistan?
Historically cotton took up about 70% of irrigated land in Uzbekistan, and the Aral Sea basin produced about 90% of Soviet cotton. That is why crop rotation is a pressing issue in the region.
Learn about this risk on your fields before it becomes a loss
We will show ClusterOS on your own fields: history since 2019, crop stage and all 24 risks.
Other risks in «Field management»
Scientific basis
- Raab C., Nguyen V.D., Barrett B. et al. (2026) Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 42:102007, DOI: 10.1016/j.rsase.2026.102007
- Short-Term Maize Rotation Suppresses Verticillium Wilt and Restructures Soil Microbiomes in Xinjiang Cotton Fields (2025), Microorganisms 13(9):1968, DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms13091968
- Irrigated Crop Types Mapping in Tashkent Province, PMC9371020
- National Cotton Council, Beltwide 1998, «Cotton Industry in Uzbekistan»