ABSTRACT:
A no-tillage (NT) farming system was integrated with four alternative irrigation strategies and compared with a conventional tillage (CT) farming system for corn and sorghum in typical wheat/fallow/feedgrain/fallow rotations of the southern Great Plains. Tillage was used for weed control during fallow periods in the CT farming system but was replaced by herbicides in the NT system. The NT farming system also eliminated the commonly practiced and expensive preplant irrigation. Four irrigation strategies included seasonal applications on corn ranging from a low of 13 in/ac to a high of 39 in/ac (83 to 246 cm/ha), and on sorghum from 4 in/ac to 23 in/ac (26 to 145 cm/ha). Integrating NT with sorghum irrigation significantly reduced seasonal water applied for most irrigation strategies, and intake and irrigation water use for all strategies. In contrast, corn irrigation amounts were largely unaffected by the NT farming system, a likely result of in-season lay-by fertilization and furrow clearing. Yields of both corn and sorghum were unaffected by NT; yet, costs were reduced and profits increased.
Footnotes
W.L. Harman is a professor in agricultural economics at Blackland Research Center, Temple. Tex.; G.C. Regier is a research scientist (retired), Dumas, Tex.; A.F. Wiese is professor emeritus in weed science at Texas A&M Research and Extension Center, Amarillo, Tex.: V.D. Lansford is program director, environmental modeling, at the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute, Columbia, Mo.
- Copyright 1998 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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