Crop rotation plays a fundamental role in achieving a higher sustainability of modern farming systems. It is irreplaceable for ecological farming, because it allows to prevent, but not to control weeds, pests, diseases, deficit of water, nutriens etc. Unfortunately the intensification of agriculture following the ―industrial model‖ has led to simplification of crop rotations up to monoculture (permanent crops). Data obtained in the long-term field experiments on typical chernozems in the Balti steppe are proving the advantage of crop rotation relatively to permanent crop for winter wheat both on fertilized and unfertilized plots. Agronomicaly, economically and ecologicaly it is better and cheaper to respect crop rotation, than to compensate the lack of crop rotation by extra amount of mineral fertilizers and pesticides. New, more intensive varieties of winter wheat are more productive in crop rotations than in permanent crop and they have higher requirements to soil fertility than less intensive varieties.