Talk:Companion planting/Archive 1

Used by whom and how

Janaathanan uses companion planting. Companion planting is used by farmers, and gardeners in both the industrialised world as well as the third world. Jana for instance is a third rate farmer who happen to take his chances to farming crops made out of chicken. His stupidity and demanding nature insecurely names him idiot. That what his name means in Greek mythology - total idiot from nature but also mean a retard with temperous fate.

For farmers, techniques are already being used in IPM, and systems can be set up to allow the farmer to have more yield and/or reduce pesticides.

In the third world, tropical crops are used instead of temperate ones and provide NGO's and other organizations with a tool for allowing the poor to get out of poverty. As a lot of poor people (e.g. in Mali) are farmers (due to lack of schooling), its implementation is very successful.

PS: It can also be used to mitigate the decline of biodiversity.

KVDP 12:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

re. 'host-finding' paragraph

I don't know where to place that but it's too good to not put it somewhere. Pls move it elsewhere if you find a better place for it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.53.51.164 (talk) 17:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

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Merge?

Beneficial weeds into this article? Apothecia (talk) 22:23, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Disagree, Companion planting is about placing pairs of plants together - sometimes pairs of veg - carrots and onions as one protects the other ! Weeds are not used.DavidAnstiss (talk) 21:48, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Intercropping?

What's the difference between companion planting and intercropping? --Katach (talk) 12:30, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure about definitions, but as the terms are often used:

• In intercropping, both/all the plants involved are used as crops
• In companion planting, some of the plants are not used as crops but are solely there because they are believed to increase yields of those that do, e.g. by providing nutrients or reducing pests and diseases.

As a consequence, it seems to me personally that the standard of proof needs to be higher in the case of companion planting; if two crops aren't mutually beneficial, at least you get to use both of them. If you plant a non-crop in space that could be used for a crop, then there needs to be good evidence that the non-crop really benefits the crop. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Claims made in an image

I removed this image file:companion-plant-peppers.png and the caption reading "These pepper plants are protected by the thyme, zinia, and geraniums intercropped with them". User:Kazvorpal restored the image and caption with the comment "These 'claims' are all sourced elsewhere in the article, or in List of companion plants".

1. The claims as claims may or may not be sourced elsewhere in the article, but (a) this is irrelevant, an inline citation is needed here (b) the image and the caption do not say e.g. "It is claimed that these pepper plants are protected by ...". They say that the protection is a fact. This needs to be explicitly sourced. WP:BURDEN is clear that it is for the editor who adds material to show that it is supported, and an inline citation is needed. Claims should not be made in an image precisely because they cannot be supported by an inline citation.
2. You cannot appeal to sources in a different Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles are not reliable sources; if the sources support the claims made then they should be here.

I can see no reliable sources given in the article which support any of the claims about specific companion plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It disgusts me when people confuse the guidelines of Wikipedia, mainly laid out for controversial claims, to be some kind of authority-worship absolute that must be adhered to even with trivial or non-controversial claims. This is Wikipedia philosophy 101 I'm outlining; I shouldn't have to be explaining it to you. Most of the guidelines you are obsessing over are intended either to keep controversial topics in order, or (all too often) as a rationale for the censorship of information disliked by some PoV editor. It most certainly isn't intended to keep a pic from having trivial information about plants from being included in an article. --Kaz (talk) 22:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

It is neither helpful nor indeed polite to express disgust at another user's questioning of claims within an article. A claim becomes controversial when it is questioned by another. I back up Peter's questioning of the claims and therefore also the removal of the image which lacked supporting citations from reliable sources. The citations you had provided (when you reinserted the image) did not support the text in the image. The first citation was very explicitly about root-knot nematodes, tomatoes and tagetes in Tanzania, none of which appeared in the image. The second citation was a general (and non-scientific) description of sulphur compounds in alliums, and how they may protect alliums from pests; it did not make any mention of how this benefit applies to other plants growing nearby (and it is not a reliable source in my view anyway). The third citation was a description of the mint family, specifically the genus Mentha. There is no mint in the image (thyme is in the genus Thymus). The last citation was again non-scientific and hence not a reliable source in my view, and anyway only made a general claim that Zinnia may attract predators and bees, without giving any measurable evidence. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

@Kaz: We disagree as to whether it is controversial that companion planting (in the sense of planting specific companion plants) is effective or not. I'm quite open to believing that it is, but I haven't seen any evidence which meets the standards expected of horticultural research and therefore of an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. When Wikipedia contains information which can be read as advice, as is often the case in horticultural articles (and more seriously in medical articles), then surely it is reasonable to require attribution to reliable sources? That is all I am asking for. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:54, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Companion planting/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I have assessed this article as Start-class and identified the following areas for improvement: Expand the lead per WP:LEAD The article needs to be written in an enyclopedic tone The article needs inline citations The article needs references Doug.(talk • contribs) 05:12, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Substituted at 21:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC)