Crop rotation also helps stop the loss of water in soil nutrients . Crop rotation avoids a decrease in soil fertility , as growing the same crop in the same place for many years in a row disproportionately depletes the soil of certain nutrients . With rotation , a crop that leaches the soil of one kind of nutrient is followed during the next growing season by a dissimilar crop that returns that nutrient to the soil or draws a different ratio of nutrients , for example , rice followed by cotton .