Excerpt
“AN oasis of farmland…where, on the steepest slopes, 30-degree farming goes on.” That is how a recent issue of National Geographic depicted the Palouse region in the Pacific Northwest (1).
Soils of the Palouse are deep, formed in an extensive deposit of loess and shaped by subsequent water erosion (11). They are the result of a unique climate, which is excellent for production of winter small grain. However, production practices cause severe erosion because the soil is exposed during the season of precipitation.
Most precipitation occurs as rain or snow during the winter months, when a third to a half of the cropland is seeded to winter wheat, which, for a variety of reasons, often provides only minimal cover until spring. Rainfall and snowmelt are often added to the soil when there is a shallow, impermeable frost layer. These factors, combined with steep north slopes and the silty loessial soils, cause most of the erosion that occurs in the region (5).
A half century of erosion control
Erosion in the Palouse has been thoroughly studied for 50 years. Farming methods to reduce erosion have been recommended since establishment of the Pacific Northwest Soil Conservation Experiment …
Footnotes
B. E. Frazier is an assistant soil scientist and C. F. Engle is an extension soil scientist in the Agronomy and Soils Department, Washington State University, Pullman, 99164; D. K. McCool is an agricultural engineer with the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Pullman. Scientific Paper No. 6404. College of Agriculture Research Center, Washington State University. Project 0323.
- Copyright 1983 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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