Marginal land

[3] Changes in product values – such as the ethanol-demand induced spike in corn prices – can result in formerly marginal lands becoming profitable.

[4] Land may be marginal for a number of reasons, including poor water supply, poor soil quality, pollution from previous industrial activities, terrain challenges such as excessive slope, or excessive distance from means of transportation.

For example, certain breeds of free-roaming livestock, such as the English Leicester sheep, are able to forage on such land.

For example, Cucurbita foetidissima, the buffalo gourd, is well adapted to marginal agricultural lands such as sandy loam soils which have to be well-drained.

[6][7] Land that is marginal for conventional row-crop production is often well-suited to perennial crops,[8] including low-input crops grown as bioenergy or bioproduct feedstocks such as switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), shrub willow (Salix spp.

Marginal land near the A4104 road in Great Britain.
switchgrass production on marginal land. Experimental plots being mowed for harvest at Cornell University in November 2016. The mixed vegetation strip to the right of the tractor shows the lower productivity of the fallow grassland that covered the site prior to planting of switchgrass in 2011.