The others did a real good job on your "plowing 101". I can give you a little of the whys of plowing.
I grew up farming in the 60's and 70's. Really started full time after college in 1976. This was right at the beginning of "Conservation tillage" or "NO-Till". The goal is to form a good seed bed, and get fertilizer down where the roots can feed on it. Plowing, followed by disking and harrowing did this well for decades.
But moldboard plowing is slow, fuel consuming, and leaves the soil unprotected and subject to wind and water erosion. We were loosing too much top soil. Too much to be sustainable. No till farming sought ways to place the seed in a good seedbed, yet not turn over the soil. Moldboard plows almost disappeared by the 80's. Most people in areas with hills or rolling terain have terraces to control erosion, so some of those folks kept an old moldboard plow to "plow up the terraces" every two or three years.
Some disadvantages of not plowing is that residue builds up too much, insect control is more difficult as the residue provides a place for overwintering and eggs. And with no till, cultivation is difficult, if not impossible, so you substitute cultivation with herbicides, which are petroleum based and getting more expensive by the day.
I have seen a recent resurgance of moldboard plowing. I think people who have no tilled continiously for 10-15 years are deciding that an occasional polwing is beneficial, although I have not seen any research or articles to this end.
Erosion can be contolled somewhat when moldboard plowing by plowing on the conture ( not going straight up the hill as the water will go down the furrows), or by plowing in strips and leaving unplowed areas to be plowed the next year.
I never sold my plow. We bought it and the 706 new in 1968 and I just cant bear to part with it.
hope this gives a little insight into why the plow is used.
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Today's Featured Article - Memories of a Farmall C - by Monty Bradley. When I was a child, my grandparents lived on a farm owned by a Mr. Walters. The crops raised were cotton and soybeans, with about forty head of mixed breed cattle. Mr. Walters owned two tractors then. A Farmall 300 on gasoline and a Farmall C, that had once belonged to his father-in-law, and had been converted from gasoline to LP Gas. Many times, as a small boy, I would cross the fence behind the house my grandparents lived in and walk down the turn row to where granddaddy would be cultivati
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