Dry Plowing For Grain
Categories: Grains and Forage CropsWe have land that we could very easily plow now with our traction engine
and improved plows, but the people here claim that it does not pay to
dry-plow, that is, before the land has had a good rain on it and the
vegetation has started. I believe in dry plowing. Two of our oldest
farmers in Merced county dry-plowed, that is, they commenced plowing as
soon as harvesting was over.
If the rainfall is small an
plowing, if it turns up the land in large clods, might yield poorer
results than land which is plowed after rain, because there would be so
much moisture lost by drying out from the coarse surface when it came in
amounts not adequate for deep penetration. Plowing after the rain for
the purpose of killing out the foul stuff which starts is, however,
quite another consideration. It is a fact that dry plowing and sowing is
not now desirable in some places where it was formerly accepted, because
the land has become so foul as to give a rank growth of weeds which
choke out the grain at its beginning. Such land can be cleaned by one or
two shallow plowings and cultivations after there is moisture enough to
start the weeds to growing. These are local questions which you will
have to settle by observation. In a general way, it is true that opening
the surface of the ground before the rains, reduces the run-off and loss
of moisture, but whether there would be any loss of moisture by run-off
or not depends upon the slope of the land and also upon the way in which
the rain comes, and the total amount of moisture which is available for
the season.
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