Posted by MarkB_MI on August 07, 2014 at 03:09:38 from (70.194.4.73):
In Reply to: Plowing wheatland posted by gtractorfan on August 06, 2014 at 19:47:30:
Chemical fallow has pretty much replaced the one-way and a host of other implements used to till summer fallow on the High Plains. I don't live in that part of the country any more, but I'm sure there are still some in use.
After the Dust Bowl, Great Plains farmers figured out with help from the Soil Conservation Service that the plains don't get enough rain to reliably produce a crop every year. The solution was to "summer fallow", meaning you only plant every other year and till it just enough to control weeds in the off years. The one-way was one of the implements developed for this purpose. Other commonly used implements were chisel plows, sweeps and rod weeders. Every time you turn the soil, you lose moisture. Since a one-way only turns it half as much as plow or tandem disk, you lose less moisture. Moldboard plows are seldom if ever used for summer fallow.
In the seventies and eighties, farmers started to experiment with chemical fallow. Rather than till the soil to kill weeds, they used herbicides. Chemical fallow produces so much better yields than tilling that nearly all dryland farmers on the plains have made the switch. It's now common to use a three-year rotation (wheat-corn-fallow) instead of the old two-year rotation.
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