The crop, of course, is by far the biggest user of soil moisture. The way it was explained to me (40 years ago, when I was in college and lived in eastern Washington) is that it took about a year and half's worth of moisture to grow a wheat crop. Summer fallow would only lose about half its moisture, so by growing wheat every other year, you had your year and a half's worth for the crop.
They would disc under the stubble, and the ground would crust over in the winter, which holds moisture in. Rod weeder drags a rotating rod under the surface, to preserve the crust.
What I don't understand is why there is almost no summer fallow in eastern Washington any more. My guess is that with the advent of Roundup, they don't work the stubble down anymore, and that helps slowdown the runoff in the winter, and more water is absorbed. I do remember some hellaceous gullying and erosion from the worked fields in the winter back in the day, and you don't see much of that anymore.
I do know that in some of the poorer rainfall areas, they alternate wheat and barley, because barley doesn't take as much moisture, leaving more for the next wheat crop.
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Today's Featured Article - Third Brush Generators - by Chris Pratt. While I love straightening sheet metal, cleaning, and painting old tractors, I use every excuse to avoid working on the on the electrics. I find the whole process sheer mystery. I have picked up and attempted to read every auto and farm electrics book with no improvement in the situation. They all seem to start with a chapter entitled "Theory of Electricity". After a few paragraphs I usually close the book and go back to banging out dents. A good friend and I were recently discussing our tractor electrical systems when he stated "I figure it all comes back to applying Ohms Law". At this point
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