by Heather Foster

Created on: April 29, 2008   Last Updated: May 07, 2008

Growing up in wheat country, listening to farmers when they came into the family parts store, I learned a lot about soil management and abuse. In western Kansas there are many, many flat areas where a farmer can just go out, plow, plant, and harvest with very little trouble, at least as far the flatness of the land. However, they tend to just leave the stubble standing there after harvest, which does catch the snow, but does little to replenish the land even after remaining fallow for a year.

Some farmers used to use the good old manure spreader; making use of all the natural fertilizer their animals left them. Plowing that in does help the soil, if you use that method liberally. Chemical fertilizers tend to dry out the soil and make it uninhabitable for earthworms and other soil denizens that are helpful to crops.

Farmers are starting to use cover crops of legume grasses like alfalfa, rye, and clover to help improve the soil during the fallow season. They can then plow the cover crop under in the fall and let natural processes turn the cover crop in to another form of fertilizer. Soybeans are another great cover crop to raise and plow under that improves the soil. Green manures like the legume grasses are even harvested for fodder before plowing the rest under to rot over the winter. This is a part of crop rotation that helps replenish the land.

However, with drought a large problem in the Midwest and West one can look at the problem rather simply and compare notes. What do states East of the Mississippi have that the western states do not have? Trees are the logical answer. A help to improving the soil would be to plant drought resistant trees along fence rows, in pastures, and along roads. Trees tend to attract storms that bring rain. This was basic sixth-grade science and yet no one uses this logical approach.

Farmers who have fields on hillsides terrace their fields to slow the runoff and hold water on the land longer. This cuts down on erosion and maximizes the use of the water in the crops. This innovation is an old, and very good, land management tool.

While composting is great on a small scale for gardens, it is not yet a practical solution on the larger scale of farming unfortunately. However, mountains of manure are readily available at feedlots all over! Some innovative farms even use treated sewage sludge to raise crops, and it is working.

Other methods now more widely used are strip tilling and no-till methods that cut narrow slits into the soil

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