What happens when wp_cron is deactivated in WordPress?

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In a WordPress 3.5.1 the apache log generates the following error related to wp-cron.php:

[18/Jun/2013:10:53:21 +0200] “POST /wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1371545601.7393701076507568359375 HTTP/1.0”
200 211 “-” “WordPress/3.5.1; http://www.foo.com”
[18/Jun/2013:10:54:36 +0200] “POST /wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1371545676.3652250766754150390625 HTTP/1.0”
200 211 “-” “WordPress/3.5.1; http://www.foo.com”
[18/Jun/2013:10:56:44 +0200] “POST /wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron=1371545804.4974770545959472656250 HTTP/1.0”
200 211 “-” “WordPress/3.5.1; http://www.foo.com”

…

More than 700 petitions per hour like this are made and I do not have any Cron plugin.

I think if I insert the following code in wp-config.php it will desactivate this cron:

define('DISABLE_WP_CRON', true);

I would like to confirm this and ask about what possible pernicious secondary effects this could have.

2 Answers
2

wp_cron is used to schedule tasks such as deleting old posts from trash, deleting old spam comments, and checking for plugin/theme updates.

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