Break crops and rotations for wheat

Wheat crops usually yield more when grown after another species than when grown after wheat. Quantifying the yield increase and explaining the factors that affect the increase will assist farmers to decide on crop sequences. This review quantifies the yield increase, based on >900 comparisons of wheat growing after a break crop with wheat after wheat. The mean increase in wheat yield varied with species of break crop, ranging from 0.5tha(-1) after oats to 1.2tha(-1) after grain legumes. Based on overlapping experiments, the observed ranking of break-crop species in terms of mean yield response of the following wheat crop was: oats