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 …
Footnotes
Allen F. Wiese is a professor of weed science, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, and Paul W. Unger is a soil scientist, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Both are located at USDA's Conservation and Production Research Laboratory. Drawer 10, Bushland, Texas 79012. This article is a contribution from the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in cooperation with ARS, USDA.
- Copyright 1983 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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