Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low RainfallWidtsoe, John Andreas
Science
Dry-Farming : A System of Agriculture for Countries under a Low Rainfall
Widtsoe, John Andreas
Dry farming
Numerous dry-farm failures may be charged wholly to ignorance
concerning the quantity of seed to sow. In no other practice has the
custom of humid countries been followed more religiously by
dry-farmers, and failure has nearly always resulted. The discussions
in this volume have brought out the fact that every plant of
whatever character requires a large amount of water for its growth.
From the first day of its growth to the day of its maturity, large
amounts of water are taken from the soil through the plant and
evaporated into the air through the leaves. When the large
quantities of seed employed in humid countries have been sown on dry
lands, the result has usually been an excellent stand early in the
season, with a crop splendid in appearance up to early summer. .A
luxuriant spring crop reduces, however, the water content of the
soil so greatly that when the heat of the summer arrives, there is
not sufficient water left in the soil to support the final
development and ripening. A thick stand in early spring is no
assurance to the dry-farmer of a good harvest. On the contrary, it
is usually the field with a thin stand in spring that stands up best
through the summer and yields most at the time of harvest. The
quantity of seed sown should vary with the soil conditions: the more
fertile the soil is, the more seed may be used; the more water in
the soil, the more seed may be sown; as the fertility or the water
content diminishes, the amount of seed should likewise be
diminished. Under dry-farm conditions the fertility is good, but the
moisture is low. As a general principle, therefore, light seeding
should be practiced on dry-farms, though it should be sufficient to
yield a crop that will shade the ground well. If the sowing is done
early, in fall or spring, less seed may be used than if the sowing
is late, because the early sowing gives a better chance for root
development, which results, ordinarily, in more vigorous plants that
consume more moisture than the smaller and weaker plants of later
sowing. If the winters are mild and well covered with snow, less
seed may be used than in districts where severe or open winters
cause a certain amount of winter-killing. On a good seed-bed of
fallowed soil less seed may be used than where the soil has not been
carefully tilled and is somewhat rough and lumpy and unfavorable for
complete germination. The yield of any crop is not directly
proportional to the amount sown, unless all factors contributing to
germination are alike. In the case of wheat and other grains, thin
seeding also gives a plant a better chance for stooling, which is
Nature's method of adapting the plant to the prevailing moisture and
fertility conditions. When plants are crowded, stooling cannot occur
to any marked degree, and the crop is rendered helpless in attempts
to adapt itself to surrounding conditions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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