Irrigation + dryland farming + limited tillage: A profitable combination

Excerpt

OF 10 million hectares (4 million acres) of cropland in the Southern High Plains, 4 million (1 6 million) are irrigated. The area of irrigated land will dimmish in the future because the underground water supply is being depleted and fuel costs (primarily natural gas) to pump water are increasing. As fuel costs rise, the profitability of irrigation can be maintained only by producing more crop per unit of water.

Consequently, research at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation and Production Research Laboratory in Bushland, Texas, over the last 20 years has been directed toward improving productivity through improved irrigation water management, dryland water conservation, and limited tillage. This research has produced new insight into methods of combining limited irrigation, dryland farming, and limited tillage into profitable conservation farming systems for the 1980s.

Some early research

Research with limited tillage on dryland at Bushland in the early 1960s showed that chemically fallowing wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) stubble land with atrazine¹ and 2,4-D would control weeds in the 11-month fallow from wheat harvest to sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] planting (15). Soil water storage during fallow was not affected by tillage treatment, and subsequent sorghum …