Okuzeka
Agriculture vocabulary · Soil and Land Management

Fallow

Meaning in agriculture, with examples

/ˈfæloʊ/adjectiveCommon term

In agriculture, fallow means: Describing farmland that is left without a crop for a season or longer, so that it can store moisture, recover fertility or be cleaned of weeds.

In Turkish: nadas, nadasa bırakılmış, boş bırakılmış

How it is used

Farmers leave land fallow or let it lie fallow; the land is then 'in fallow'. It is also a noun ('a year of fallow'). In dry regions, the wheat-fallow system stores two years of rain for one crop.

Example sentences

  1. In Central Anatolia many farmers still leave half of their land fallow each year.

  2. The fallow field was cultivated twice to control weeds.

Common collocations

  • leave land fallow
  • lie fallow
  • fallow land
  • summer fallow
  • wheat-fallow system
  • crop rotationThe practice of growing different crops on the same field in a planned order over several seasons to keep the soil healthy and reduce pests, diseases and weeds.
  • arable landLand that is plowed or cultivated and used for growing annual crops such as cereals, vegetables or fodder crops.
  • soil fertilityThe ability of a soil to supply plants with the nutrients, water and conditions they need to grow well and give good yields.
  • cover cropA crop grown mainly to protect and improve the soil between main crops, rather than to be harvested, such as vetch, clover, rye or mustard.
  • droughtA long period with much less rain than normal, which leaves soil dry and causes water shortages and crop losses.

More terms: Soil and Land Management

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: