6. (Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns) As a farmer, you must decide how many times during the year to plant a new crop. Also, you must decide how far apart to space the plants. Will diminishing returns be a factor in your decision making? If so, how will it affect your decisions? The law of diminishing marginal returns says that, the more of a variable resource that is combined with a given amount of a fixed resource (land in this case), marginal product (crop) will eventually decline. Diminishing returns will result from growing crops too close together or planting too many times in one year. Placing crops too close together deprives them of sufficient nutrients to grow. More plants grow, but each produces smaller and fewer fruits or vegetables. If crops are not rotated and sufficient time is not allowed for the soil to regain its nutrients, subsequent harvests will be smaller. For this reason, farmers often allow a field to go fallow, planting it with grass or nitrogen-rich plants.